1842
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Fisherman (Le Pêcheur) is a 1842 by Théodore Rousseau, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
The painting shows a fisherman resting by a tree. He's surrounded by detailed rocks and grasses. The artist paid close attention to the natural world. The fisherman is humble and at rest, which says a lot about the artist's focus. The artist lived in a small village and spent time painting in a converted barn. This style is similar to what you'd see if you looked up the technique of chiaroscuro.
The quintessential Barbizon artist, Rousseau was romantically in love with nature. He spent the better part of twenty years living in near poverty in a cottage in the village of Barbizon, painting in a converted barn. The Fisherman is an early drawing by the artist, probably executed on the outskirts of Paris. The tree, the foreground grasses and rocks, and the humble form of the fisherman at rest are rendered with great specificity. Rousseau thought of each tree in the Forest of Fontainebleau as being almost human, each marked by a particular fate and struggle.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (French pronunciation: ; 15 April 1812 – 22 December 1867) was a French painter of the Barbizon school.
See the richer artist page
