South of Paris, the Forest of Fontainebleau—once a royal hunting ground—became a favored destination for artists beginning in the 1820s. Its proximity to the city offered painters an escape from urban life and a place to encounter nature directly. By the mid-nineteenth century, many artists had settled in the nearby village of Barbizon, where they began to capture the varied landscapes of the forest in their work.

The Barbizon painters depicted dense woodlands, open clearings, marshes, and rugged gorges, captivated by the shifting effects of light and atmosphere. Devoting themselves to the truthful observa tion of nature, they sought to record what they saw with sincerity rather than idealization. Their rejection of classical landscape conventions and embrace of direct experience laid the groundwork for the new landscape tradition of Impressionism.