Banks of the Oise

Daubigny was a painter with ties with Corot and other Barbizon school artists, and particularly excelled at waterside landscapes. He often worked aboard his studio-boat the Botin, plying the Seine and Oise rivers and repeatedly painting their scenery. In 1860, Daubigny settled in Auvers-sur-Oise on the banks of the Oise, and views of that river became an increasingly central subject of his works. This painting depicts a flat expanse typical of the Oise’s surroundings, with color-tinged clouds and riverside trees reflected in the water’s surface. The ever-changing skies and movement of the river seem frozen in time by the presence of a figure resting his cattle on the riverbank. (F.R.)