Paysage monumental d’Italie ("Monumental Landscape of Italy"), 1820, by Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidault

In the second half of the 18th century, the practice of oil sketching of outdoor landscapes spread throughout Europe. Artists flocked to Italy to paint "sur le motif" the monuments of Rome and the idealized landscapes of the Roman countryside.

The school led by the painters Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidault was part of this vast European movement. These landscape painters of the first half of the 19th century are now considered the first outdoor painters, although their compositions are still idealized, taking the first step towards a new vision of landscapes until the emergence of the Barbizon School generation.

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819) theorized his art and teaching in Eléments de perspective, published in 1799. In it, he advocated the direct study of nature in the open air, in two-hour sessions only, in order to preserve a unity of light. These studies were by no means intended as works of art, but as aids to the execution of paintings. He built up a repertoire of forms, while exhorting the study of landscape "in all its parts" and prescribing "to rise before dawn to know all its effects". Valenciennes also defined the "portrait landscape", which he hoped would become the equal of the great history painting.

As Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes lived in Rome from 1777 to 1785, he barely crossed paths with Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidault, who stayed there from 1785 to 1790. Bidault, although not a pupil of Valenciennes, followed in his footsteps and, in contact with the pupils of Jacques-Louis David, developed a style combining observation of nature and neoclassical composition. With his delicate, meticulous style, detailing the motif and painting each leaf distinctly, he was particularly interested in landscapes. He helped to define the journey of artists in search of new views of the Roman countryside, to the towns of Subiaco, Narni, Civita Catellana... Characters were of little importance to him, and those in his pictures were sometimes painted by other artists. The view of the town of Avezzano, preserved in the Louvre, and the view of a viaduct in the Magnin Museum in Dijon, perfectly illustrate his practice of sketching in the open air, his taste for unprecedented views and his exclusive attention to landscape.

In the large painting of Maisons-Laffitte, the figures playing a game of skittles and the strollers have an undeniably picturesque effect. They liven up a landscape that is not distinguished by any notable building, and two-thirds of which is devoted to the sky. Nevertheless, it is this peaceful landscape and the view of the mountains at the center of the composition, with its layered monochrome colors, that constitute the subject of the work. The other subject is undoubtedly the study of light, perceptible in the soft glow of the misty atmosphere over the countryside and its vegetation. The treatment of the clouds, echoing the shadows cast by the mountains and foliage, renders the light of a late afternoon in a particularly sensitive manner.

Marie-Madeleine Aubrun, « La tradition du paysage historique et le paysage naturaliste dans la première moitié du XIX^e siècle français », L’Information d’histoire de l’art, no 2, mars-avril 1968, p. 63-72.

Anna Ottani Cavina, Paysages d’Italie, les peintres du plein air, Paris, RMN, 2001.

Suzanne Gutwirth, « Jean-Joseph Bidauld. Une sensibilité néoclassique », Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld (1758-1846). Peintures et dessins, cat. exp. Carpentras, musée Duplessis ; Angers, musée des Beaux-Arts ; Cherbourg, musée Thomas-Henry, 1978, Nantes, imp. Chiffoleau, 1978.

Ger Luijten, Mary Morton et Jane Munro (éd.), Sur le motif. Peindre en plein air 1780-1870, Londres, Paul Holberton Publishing, 2020.

Désiré Raoul-Rochette, « Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Bidault », 6 octobre 1849, Procès-verbaux de l’Académie des beaux-arts, 1845-1849, Paris, École des Chartes, 2008, t. VIII, p. 456-457.