Vue d’une clairière 

Narcisse-Virgilio Diaz painted Vue d’une clairière, or View of a Clearing, in France during a period of great change in that country. This small painting might seem simply an innocent depiction of nature, yet its creation speaks volumes about the changing status of art and the artist in nineteenth-century France. Diaz and his fellow painters, like Théodore Rousseau, gathered in the forest of Fontainebleau to paint directly from nature, and in doing so, turned their backs on the art establishment. Prior to this time, French art had been dominated by the Academy, which emphasized historical and mythological subjects, and dictated a highly finished style. But Diaz and others felt that art should reflect the modern world, and that artists should be free to express their own individual vision. This painting, with its loose brushwork and emphasis on capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere, embodies that spirit of freedom. Historians look to salon reviews, artist's correspondence, and other primary source material to understand the context in which artworks like this were made and exhibited, and it reveals that its informality, which might seem unremarkable to us now, was considered quite radical.