Landscape with Figure and Houses

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Artist: Émile Schuffenecker (French, 1851–1934)
Medium: Pastel on brown wove paper
Size: Sheet: 63 x 78.5 cm (24 13/16 x 30 7/8 in.)
Culture: France, 19th century
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

To record rural landscapes, Emile Schuffenecker often took advantage of recently constructed train lines that facilitated travel outside Paris. Here, he portrayed Meudon, a southwestern suburb. Schuffenecker used easily portable pastel sticks to sketch outdoors, producing studies that he later developed into finished works in his studio. With distinctive vertical marks, he combined complementary colors to increase their intensity, choosing textured brown paper to further this impact. The shimmering result is grounded by massive lichen-covered rocks in the foreground that evoke ancient monumental stones in the area and give the drawing a sense of timelessness.