View on the Outskirts of Caen

Stanislas Lépine

National Gallery of Art

The painting shows an elevated perspective overlooking a landscape with green hills and leafy trees. Closest to us, there are cream-colored buildings among dense foliage. These buildings have roofs in shades of pale blue-gray and reddish-brown, and the one in the center has wispy white smoke coming out of a chimney. In the distance on the left, a large, low structure sits atop a hill, with faint paths winding towards it through the green landscape. Beyond the trees, the distant landscape on the right is painted in shades of pale blue and green. The sky above is filled with puffy clouds in shades of gray.