View of Lake Nemi

Jules Coignet

National Gallery of Art

A sheer cliff looming across a deep valley is backlit by a low sunset in this is horizontal landscape painting. The tree closest to us grows up above the canopies of trees that fill the valley and nearly touches the top edge of the composition. Brown buildings clustered near the edge of the cliff are outlined against the sunset sky. Light falls across the landscape from the left, casting the right face of the cliff into shadow. The foot of the cliff angles steeply down to a paler green and gold area, and another ridge of rocky hills extends across the right half of the composition to enclose a body of still water. The horizon, which comes just over halfway up the painting, is streaked with pale rust red, lavender purple, and slate blue. The sky above is warmed to soft yellow with a few streaks of darker straw-yellow clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Nemi 1843.”