Théophile Clément BLANCHARD - Landscape in Normandy

Théophile Clément BLANCHARD
1820 - 1849
Oil on canvas
28 x 34 cm (45 x 58 cm with frame)
Signed lower right "Blanchard".
Attractive 19th-century gilded wood frame
French painter, lithographer and illustrator Théophile Clément Blanchard was one of the painters of the Romantic period who depicted picturesque views of France, like Alexis Daligé de Fontenay and Eugène Cicéri. These painters traveled extensively in search of picturesque sites, particularly in Normandy, Brittany, Switzerland and the Pyrenees. Blanchard was one of the illustrators of "Voyages Pittoresques et Romantiques dans l'ancienne France".
But works by this Romantic painter are rare, as Blanchard died very young at the age of twenty-nine! However, we do know of a view of Bugey (dated 1846) in the Louvre and a "Délicieux paysage" (1840s) in the Musée Salies in Bagnères de Bigorre, which is reminiscent of our painting.
Our painting, which is undoubtedly a small sketch, contains all the elements of the left-hand side of the final composition in the Musée Salies, with a lighter style and a tighter composition. The relief, the trees, the characteristic long-roofed farmhouse that reaches almost to the ground, and the sea and cliffs in the distance are all visible. Blanchard would also repeat this original point of view, with a branch of the river running off the center of the composition this time, as he would add a right-hand section to the final composition with another riverside with trees and horses.
The painting in the Musée Salies shows even more clearly that this is a landscape of Normandy, with the sea in the background, the cliffs and Norman cows.

Ref: 13BSSMKSJ8