Landscape

Many of Harpignies's paintings reveal the influence of Camille Corot, with whom he traveled to Italy in 1860, and of the English artist John Constable, whose work had left its mark on an earlier generation of French landscape painters. After that, Harpignies falls somewhere between the Barbizon School and the Impressionists, with his artistic career spanning both movements. Although he did produce some still-lifes and figurative works, his primary interest was the rural and urban landscape. In this late landscape, there is clear evidence of all of the major influences in the artist's career - the feathery trees and foliage of Corot, clouds of Constable, the rich, earthy palette of the Barbizon painters, and the beginnings of Impressionist light.