Bridge on the Saône River at Mâcon

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

National Gallery of Art

A sand-colored riverbank stretches in front of us to meet an arched bridge that spans a pale blue river to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted so many details are indistinct. A retaining wall extends toward us from the abutment of the bridge, where it meets the land. About halfway along the shore, a group of people painted with a few strokes of gray, pink, brown, and white gather near the water. The bridge continues off the right edge of the painting and reflects in the rippling, pale water below. To our left, a bank of fern green, suggesting grasses or other growth, and some trees line the beach-like riverbank. A line of ivory-colored buildings with pewter-gray roofs extend into the distance to our left beyond the bridge. More buildings and trees along the horizon line in the deep distance are seen through the arches of the bridge to our right. In the top half of the painting, tan-colored brushstrokes lightly sweeping across the blue sky suggest hazy clouds. Two inscriptions have been written in the lower left corner. In brown ink, one reads, “Corot 1834.” Below it, the other is written in pencil: “Corot Pingebat 1834.”