View near Barbizon

Gustave-Achille Guillaumet studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon beginning in 1861. He led a successful career and was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1878. Guillaumet is best known as an Orientalist for his many paintings of North Africa. In all his works, including this watercolor, Guillaumet is interested in the problems of light and atmosphere. In View near Barbizon, he magnifies a small fragment of the Forest of Fontainebleau and uses watercolor to examine the ways in which light filters through the leaves and branches of the trees.