Landscape

Georges Michel 1763 - 1843

Summary

A low cottage sits isolated on a rise amid a desolate moorland landscape, protected from the elements only by a few stunted trees. A deeply rutted track in the dunes curves right round the house, in what is almost a fish-eye view. A lone figure walks along the path under a forbidding sky. Michel spent a period restoring Dutch paintings in the Louvre and his work owes much to the Dutch seventeenth-century masters, as this composition shows, with its winding, rutted path, expansive sky and muted palette.