Classical Landscape with Figures

Jean Victor Bertin

1803 · Oil on wood · European Paintings

In this pastoral scene, Bertin employs figures gathered around an aged poet at the lower right, both to animate the landscape and to evoke the golden age of classical antiquity. His idealized vision of nature is very much in the manner of French artists active in Rome in the seventeenth century, notably Claude Lorrain. At the end of the eighteenth century, paintings like this one were brought into vogue by Bertin’s teacher, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, and served as touchstones to Bertin’s pupils, notably Achille-Etna Michallon and Camille Corot.

Artist

Jean Victor Bertin

Date

1803

Medium

Oil on wood

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

The Whitney Collection, Promised Gift of Wheelock Whitney III, and Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, by exchange, 2003