Landscape (1870–84): Art, History and Details

Landscape (1870–84) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is François-Auguste Ravier (French, 1814–1895).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

François-Auguste Ravier was initially influenced by the Barbizon tradition, but as he matured, his work became increasingly subjective and expressive. This highly worked drawing depicts the landscape around Morestel, near the artist’s native Lyon. Rather than focusing on cultivated fields of the region, Ravier preferred isolated ponds, woods, and plains that convey a poignant sense of his solitude and detachment from the Parisian art world. Ravier’s watercolors were carefully considered studio works, distillations of remembered experiences in nature. In his writing, Ravier spoke of how the most beautiful landscapes of all were those in his dreams.

Object facts

• Title: Landscape
• Date: 1870–84
• Creator attribution: François-Auguste Ravier (French, 1814–1895)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor and gouache with graphite and traces of black chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.7 x 35.9 cm (10 7/8 x 14 1/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1920.725

Collection credit

Gift of Mme. Félix Thiollier

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ferrillo, Lynn Boyer. “Two Landscapes by François-Auguste Ravier.” Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 3 (1998): 86–118.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.