Armand Charnay, 'Park of Sansac (Indre-et-Loire)', 1885

Armand Charnay was a French landscape painter. He initially trained as a notary but found his work dull. To amuse himself, he started to make pencil portraits of his clients. Therefore, in 1865 he went to Paris to train as an artist. By 1867 he was already exhibiting in the Salon. He was awarded a third-class medal in 1876, a second-class medal in 1886 and a gold medal in 1889. In 1908 he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur. He also created a panel for the grand staircase of the L’Hotel de Ville in Paris, showing the suburb of Passy, which had recently become part of the city.

Charnay moved out of Paris in 1871 and settled in the village of Marlotte, where he would live for the rest of his life. Marlotte is on the edge of the scenic forest of Fontainebleau and attracted artists including August Renior, Paul Cezanne, Alfred Sisley and Jean-Baptiste Corot, among others. It is close to the village of Barbizon, which had been popular with artists since the 1820s. They were drawn to the forests and in particular the light and shadows of the trees, the skies and the lakes. Many of these artists began to paint directly from nature, en plein air, so that they could capture the changing and fleeting effects of light and the seasons. These artists, now called the Barbizon School, were a major influence on the generation that followed, especially many of the artists who became known as the Impressionists.

Charnay’s painting shows the Chateau de Sansac, a sixteenth-century chateau on the banks of the River Indre, on a crisp autumn day. The leaves have turned brown and are falling from the trees. Charnay specialised in wooded scenes often featuring castles. He also liked to include fashionably dressed women, such as the one seen here. Her attention is absorbed by the book she is reading. She seems oblivious to the beautiful scenery around her. While Charnay painted his landscapes from nature, he frequently added the figures afterwards.

The painting was presented by the artist to the National Gallery in 1908 and passed to the Tate in the 1920s. It has been on loan to the National Gallery since 1997. When presenting it, Charnay wrote: ‘this study painted entirely from nature near one of the oldest mansions of our old Touraine is one of my best works’.