In the 1830s the famous French painter and theoretician Theodore Rousseau and a number of his friends began working in the village of Barbizon near Paris, from the name of which the group came to be known as the Barbizon School. Unlike the Neoclassicists, who preferred to paint the Italian landscape, or the Romantics, who were attracted by the East, the Barbizon School turned to the depiction of their native land.
In this work Rousseau shows us a broad plain and trees with twisted trunks beneath a high, cloudy sky. The contrast between the shady foreground and the sunlit distance reinforces the impression of depth. A decorative effect is created by the twisting branches picked out against the light sky. The combination of objective realism and a lyrical interpretation of nature was typical of the Barbizon artists.