Daubigny, Charles Francois

Born Feb. 15, 1817, in Paris; died there Feb. 19, 1878. French painter and graphic artist.

In 1840, Daubigny studied under P. Delaroche. In the 1840’s he worked mainly as an illustrator; at the end of the 1840’s he began to create realistic landscapes in his etchings and became associated with the Barbizon school. In the 1850’s he began to paint small landscapes, simple in composition and endowed with a quiet and intimate charm (The Banks of the Oise; The Morning, 1858; both in the A. S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). On the basis of a careful study of nature, Daubigny rendered its freshness and tremulousness spontaneously and poetically, giving permanency to its ephemeral states. In his larger landscapes, such as The Dam in the Optevox Valley (1855, Museum of Art and Ceramics, Rouen), Daubigny sought to create a more generalized image of nature. His painting is characterized by light, delicate, and at times transparent colors and rich tonal values.