Road in the Wood

The son of Spanish immigrants, Diaz de la Pena was a renowned painter and lithographer, and in the early 1850s he was associated with the artists of the Barbizon School, which took its name from the village of Barbizon, not far from Paris. As he painted the landscapes around the forest of Fontainebleau, Diaz partly preserved the Romantic tendencies which were inherent in his early work. In this particular canvas the twisting trunks and branches of the trees seem to form arches through which the road leads into the depths. The sunlight which pierces through the thick crowns of the trees creates a decorative effect, forcing the grass in the meadow, the bark on the trees and the lacy green foliage to twinkle and sparkle. The dark, intense colouring is dominated by olive-green and sandy-brown tones, enlivened by the greyish-blue strip of the sky and the figure of a woman in red and blue walking along the road.