In the much-neglected branch of landscape painting the classic
tradition of Claude ruled supreme until a new conception arose with
the victory of the romantics in the third decade of the nineteenth
century. Two names only need be mentioned before we pass on to the
new movement—the return to nature—which was inaugurated by the group
of painters vaguely known as the Barbizon school. Both Georges Michel
(1763-1843) and Paul Huet (1804-1868) may be regarded as forerunners
of that great movement; and both have only in recent years received
the recognition which is their due. Michel developed his style in
copying and closely studying the Dutch landscape masters, and must
in his maturity have been well acquainted with the art of Constable,
who exercised, together with Bonington, a prodigious influence on the
whole course of French landscape painting. If Michel’s breadth of
style, which may be judged from _Near Montmartre_ (No. 626), had been
accompanied by a greater range of subject-matter, he would probably
rank more highly in the roll of French artists; but he contented
himself with the endless repetition of the same motifs which he found
close to Montmartre, where he spent his whole life. The care with which
he studied the works of Jacob van Ruisdael earned for him the nickname
of “the Ruisdael of Montmartre.”
Huet, again, learnt more from the old masters and from his friends,
Bonington and Delacroix, than from his actual teachers. He, too,
thrust aside the recipes of composing classic or “noble” landscapes,
and was inspired by an altogether emotional outlook upon nature, calm
and serene, as in _The Still Morning_ (No. 413), or threatening and
tempestuous, as in _The Inundation at St. Cloud_ (No. 412), or in his
masterpiece, _The Breakers at Granville_ (No. 2952).