Autumn in the Bois de Boulogne

This delightful landscape watercolour painting is believed to have been produced by Berthe Morisot in 1884. It was named Autumn in the Bois de Boulogne and she produced many artworks within this region.

This highly expressive artwork features a number of slim-trunked trees as well as an abudance of light which is delivered in areas that the artist leaves blank. By painting around these sections, she gives the illusion of bright light flooding into the scene, as if the viewer is blinded temporarily by this. She naturally focuses on colours of nature whilst stood within this forest, with tones of green and blue in opaque splashes of watercolour. There is a rough sense of perspective delivered with a path which slowly meanders across to the right hand side, but it is far from precise, as the artist focuses more on expressing herself. She spent a period of her career devoted to watercolours, but mostly used oils when examining the full body of work that she produced. Landscapes would normally feature figures within them but here she allows herself to cover purely the nature that existed around her within the Bois de Boulogne.

You will notice how the top half of this painting is far brighter than the bottom, which gives the impression of shadows being cast by a dense arrangement of trees and shrubs. She feels secluded in this environment, with no-one else around. She would have produced this watercolour painting at brisk pace and this is entirely normal for that art form. It is interesting to see something here that is entirely separate from the normal genres in which the artist worked, as she sought perhaps a break from her normal focus on portraits of women and children. As highly skilled as she was at that, and as much success as it brought her, she surely would have enjoyed trying something different as she did so here. There are a number of landscape paintings dotted about her oeuvre which are entirely accomplished artworks in their own right.

Berthe Morisot was a highly gifted painter who helped to draw attention to the qualities possessed by a number of exceptional female painters in the late 19th century. Doors would then open for other women who followed in the 20th century and slowly we progressed towards the much fairer state of society that we have today. She showed what was possible for those given a chance to make the most of their talent, and her role within the Impressionist movement ensures her career continues to receive considerable exposure. The watercolours that she produced are also entirely worthy of note and add an extra point of interest to her overall contribution.