Daubigny: Inspiring Impressionism

Charles François Daubigny, Sunset near Villerville, c. 1876 (The Mesdag Collection, The Hague)
Charles François Daubigny, Sunset near Villerville, c. 1876 (The Mesdag Collection, The Hague)

Sam Kitchener reviews the recent exhibition Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh at the Scottish National Gallery.

Kitchener writes: "Just how far Daubigny influenced Monet and vice versa is left open to interpretation here. But a startling use, or rather perception, of colour, had long been a feature of Daubigny’s work... Van Gogh’s work during this period – which includes three paintings of Daubigny’s garden – is a logical culmination of certain themes that also occupied Daubigny: an awareness of how the materials through which an impression of landscape is registered become a part of that impression, and the knowledge that if a landscape can only be communicated through an individual’s experience of it, then an individual’s emotions will find their way into that landscape."