Narcisse-Virgilio Diaz de la Peña, Sunny Days in the Forest

Two women gather sticks by a watery clearing in front of a group of trees. The trees are arranged in an arc, with the most prominent left of centre and the others set back on each side. This is a composition habitually used by Diaz in his views of the forest of Fontainebleau. As with his Common with Stormy Sunset, it shows the influence of Théodore Rousseau, in particular paintings such as The Pond (1842–3, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims).

The women, one in a white blouse and cap and red shawl, provide a decorative element, rather in the manner of Corot’s red-capped figures, adding a note of colour to the pervading green of the landscape. According to restrictions reinstated in 1848–9, women and children were only allowed to gather wood from December to February, but the season depicted here is almost certainly spring. The whole is very thickly painted, with many layers and a degree of impasto, which may be because Diaz was emulating such Dutch seventeenth-century landscapists as Ruisdael. The trees are built up from dark to light, giving depth and three-dimensionality. The foliage is picked out with numerous touches of light paint, which gives an effect of dancing light. The trees are painted directly over the sky, and Diaz has broken up the greens of the foliage with final touches of blue paint to create a more dappled appearance.