Narcisse-Virgilio Diaz de la Peña, The Storm

This landscape is typical of Diaz’s late work, which was imbued with strong natural and dramatic effects. The view is across the desolate heathlands near the village of Barbizon, and features rocky outcrops in the scrub and a few sparse trees. A path runs through the plain, leading the eye into the composition . The combination of the dominant stormy sky with its mass of grey clouds and the bleak plain conjures up the terrors of a storm out in the open. The sky breaks only at the centre to show patches of blue and whiter clouds, an unseen sun casting light onto the path below.

To the right of this path a man carrying a gun is accompanied by two dogs. Such lone hunters are a frequent image in Diaz’s paintings of this period. Here the man is painted almost entirely in monochrome, emphasising his vulnerability in the face of nature’s forces. Diaz has adapted his brushstrokes to the drama of the scene. The landscape is painted in short, choppy, horizontal and diagonal strokes, whereas the treatment of the sky, with multi-directional and expansive brushwork, echoes the stormy weather it describes. At the centre, vertical strokes are brought down over the tops of the bushes, perhaps suggesting rainfall.