Breton Village

Odilon Redon

National Gallery of Art

We look across an ochre-yellow field to a band of pearl-white buildings under an azure-blue sky in this horizontal landscape painting. Flecks of red in the lower right corner could be flowers. Some of the buildings have tan or silvery-gray roofs, and the faces are in blue shadow. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and a few round white clouds trundle across the vivid blue sky. The scene is painted with visible, textured brushstrokes throughout. The artist signed the lower left corner, “ODILON REDON.”