Flachlandschaft mit Kirchturm bei Regenwetter 1860 - 1878

Editor: This is Charles François Daubigny's "Flachlandschaft mit Kirchturm bei Regenwetter," created sometime between 1860 and 1878. It’s a drawing done with pencil, chalk, and charcoal, a stormy landscape with a distant church steeple barely visible through the rain. It feels incredibly bleak, yet strangely comforting. What stands out to you when you look at this work? Curator: Ah, yes, Daubigny captures a moment, doesn’t he? I feel the rain on my face, the wind whipping around. He gives us so little information, almost daring us to fill in the blanks. What do you make of that tower, poking tentatively above the horizon? Editor: It’s almost like a beacon, a point of stability in all that swirling chaos. Do you think that was intentional, or am I reading too much into it? Curator: Intentional? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I find that with drawings like this, the beauty lies precisely in their ambiguity. The “real” landscape blends with the emotional landscape of the artist. Notice how he's used such simple tools – charcoal, pencil – to create this feeling of atmospheric immensity! Think of the possibilities held within these media... A cloudy day made manifest. What secrets are locked away? Editor: That's fascinating, I hadn't really considered the… potentiality of such 'basic' media. I tend to focus on oil and things...it looks almost unfinished. How does that kind of spontaneity speak to its historical context? Curator: Exactly! Consider this piece alongside the grand, highly finished landscapes of earlier artists. This, by comparison, feels like a fleeting glimpse, almost revolutionary in its informality. Think of it as a visual poem rather than a detailed report, a window into a specific time and also his feelings, and the blossoming interest in capturing personal experience, in 'real time', *in plein air*. It breaks my heart, truthfully. Editor: I see what you mean! It’s definitely shifted my perspective. Now, instead of feeling bleak, I think it actually has a strange sort of… hope to it? Like, even in the storm, life, and the steeple stands. Thanks for that! Curator: And thank you, your question led us both down a fruitful path of discovery!