Artwork
The Route Nationale at Samer
The Route Nationale at Samer is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist Jean Charles Cazin. It dates from 1891 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Thus the work functions as a visual record of regional identity and the quiet dignity of manual labor in the French countryside.
The Route Nationale at Samer is an 1881 oil on canvas work by Jean‑Charles Cazin, classified as a painting. The composition shows a modest house beside a country road, with a woman, a donkey and a cart positioned along the route, as recorded in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalogue. Cazin’s rendering emphasizes the everyday rural scene of late‑19th‑century France, using the ordinary elements of a dwelling, roadway and laboring figures to suggest the steady passage of time and the endurance of agrarian life.
Thus the work functions as a visual record of regional identity and the quiet dignity of manual labor in the French countryside.
Technique & Style
Jean-Charles Cazin's The Route Nationale at Samer, completed in 1881, is executed in oil paint on a canvas support. The work measures 105.4 cm in height and 122.6 cm in width. Classified as a painting, the piece depicts a rural scene featuring a road, a house, a woman, a donkey, and a cart.
The medium and materials align with Cazin's practice during this period, utilizing traditional oil techniques on a substantial canvas format to render the landscape and its figures. The physical dimensions and material composition are documented in the collection records of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
History & Provenance
The Route Nationale at Samer is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Created by Jean-Charles Cazin in 1881, this oil-on-canvas painting depicts a rural scene featuring a house, road, woman, donkey, and cart. The work measures 105.4 cm in height and 122.6 cm in width.
While the sources confirm its presence within the museum's holdings and provide its physical dimensions and creation date, they do not list a specific inventory or accession number, nor do they detail any exhibition history for the piece.
Overview
Painted in 1891, The Route Nationale at Samer is an oil on canvas by the French artist Jean Charles Cazin. The work depicts a rural landscape along a national road near Samer in the Pas-de-Calais region. The composition centers on a woman standing beside a donkey, positioned as a focal point against a backdrop of bare trees and a soft, pale sky, suggesting a late autumn or winter setting.
To the right, a small house with a red roof and a parked cart anchor the scene in daily peasant life. Cazin employs a muted, atmospheric palette and loose, expressive brushwork characteristic of his later style, which moved away from strict academic realism toward a more poetic, tonal approach. This period of Cazin's career, following his earlier Symbolist experiments, reflects a sustained interest in the quiet dignity of rural existence and the emotional resonance of the French countryside.
The painting exemplifies his ability to infuse ordinary subjects with a sense of stillness and narrative potential, bridging the gap between naturalism and the emerging Symbolist sensibilities of the late 19th century.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Jean-Charles Cazin was a French landscapist, museum curator and ceramicist.
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