The Banks of the Oise 1877

Charles-François Daubigny captured this landscape en plein air with oil on canvas. Daubigny was a key figure in the development of French landscape painting. His direct engagement with nature, working outside the studio, was radical. In the mid-19th century, the French Academy still prized historical and mythological scenes, seen as elevating art above mere representation. Daubigny, and other Barbizon school painters, challenged this hierarchy by focusing on the everyday beauty of the French countryside. His paintings reflect the shift in French society towards valuing rural life and the emerging notion of leisure. The Oise river, a working waterway, here becomes a place of tranquility. The loose brushwork and naturalistic palette evoke a sense of atmosphere. This painting is a rejection of academic conventions and an embrace of the transient beauty of the natural world. To fully understand Daubigny, studying exhibition reviews and the writings of critics like Baudelaire can reveal the stakes of landscape painting at the time.