1891
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Landscape with Figure and Houses is a 1891 by Émile Schuffenecker, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a quiet path winding past small houses, a lone figure walking under a bright sky. Schuffenecker sketched this scene outdoors using pastels—soft, chalky sticks. He layered colors in quick, vertical strokes to make them glow. The brown paper underneath adds texture, like rough fabric. This was a new way to work in the 1890s: fast, portable, and full of light. If you like this, look up *impasto*—a technique where paint is laid on thickly for a similar effect.
To record rural landscapes, Emile Schuffenecker often took advantage of recently constructed train lines that facilitated travel outside Paris. Here, he portrayed Meudon, a southwestern suburb. Schuffenecker used easily portable pastel sticks to sketch outdoors, producing studies that he later developed into finished works in his studio. With distinctive vertical marks, he combined complementary colors to increase their intensity, choosing textured brown paper to further this impact. The shimmering result is grounded by massive lichen-covered rocks in the foreground that evoke ancient…
On the back of this drawing, Emile Schuffenecker noted "Nocturne Espagnol / flute," referencing a specific piece of music that provided inspiration for the work.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Claude-Émile Schuffenecker (8 December 1851 – 31 July 1934) was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector.
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