Panoramic Landscape near the River Moselle

Théodore Rousseau

National Gallery of Art

We look across the tops of trees down onto the roofs of a cluster of buildings and then a grassy expanse, a body of water, and rolling hills in this notably wide landscape painting. The trees are painted with shades of pine and olive green. At the center of the composition, the roofs are muted terracotta red with white chimneys except for the farthest structure, which has a gray roof around a lantern, perhaps indicating a church. Smoke puffs out of one chimney there. Trees with round canopies dot the pale, grassy field beyond that, which leads back to rows of tall, dark green cypress trees. A ribbon of ice blue across the left third of the painting indicates a body of water before russet-brown and muted sage-green hills roll into the deep, hazy distance. The horizon comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting, and glimpses of pale blue sky are visible through breaks in a blanket of pale gray and cream-white clouds above.