La Seine à Billancourt, coucher de soleil c. 19th century

Félix Ziem painted ‘La Seine à Billancourt, coucher de soleil’ with oil paint, capturing a view of the Seine at sunset. The painting is dominated by a sky filled with horizontal brushstrokes of yellows and greys which meet dark foliage on the right. These colours evoke a tranquil, yet melancholic atmosphere. Ziem uses the formal elements to create a semiotic structure that challenges fixed perspectives on nature. The brushstrokes do not blend, retaining their distinct character and disrupting the conventional smooth finish of academic landscapes. The dark trees and turbulent sky reduce the landscape into blocks of colour and texture that shift our focus from representation to the materiality of paint itself. The composition and application of paint allow us to consider how Ziem destabilizes the traditional landscape genre. This approach aligns the painting with broader artistic movements exploring the subjective experience of space, light and the very substance of painting.