Landscape with Château Gaillard
1796
- Medium
- Black and gray ink, opaque watercolor, and watercolor
- Dimensions
- 31.3 × 44.5 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-204609
Jean-Jacques de Boissieu carefully framed his motif: an abandoned fortified house in Lyon known as Château Gaillard. Viewed from below, the ruins loom over the landscape; two minute figures in the foreground heighten the castle's imposing presence. Bathed in clear light, the two women are paired with two equally tiny pots of flowers, small symbols of a tamed and cultivated natural world. But for the most part, nature cannot be contained. Foliage and trees spring forth from the craggy inclines and ruins. Nature and the man-made intermingle and are brought closer together by a shared palette of browns and greens. As a draftsman, Boissieu is best known for drawings like this one: large-scale landscapes enhanced with gray wash and highlights of gouache or watercolor. Boissieu masterfully adapted his brushwork to capture nature's distinct and varied textures in a complex pattern of strong shadows and bright light under an extremely light and cloudless sky. Toward the left edge of the image, tiny dabs of blue gouache deepen the shadows.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Registry history
- 1796 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — drawings
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