“Elevating Nature above itself carries profound and delightful sensations for the soul.”

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, Elémens de perspective prâtique à l’usage des Artistes, Paris, 1800

An iconic example of French neo-classical landscape painting by the “new Poussin,” as Valenciennes was known in his lifetime, Classical Landscape with Figures Drinking by a Fountain is a carefully composed scene of calculated pictorial harmony. Valenciennes advocated deriving inspiration from firsthand study of nature, but then pursuing the Ideal through unity of form, line, color, and light.

Following training in his native city of Toulouse and in Paris, Valenciennes spent much of the period from 1777 until 1884/85 in Rome, where he made numerous drawings and sketches in order to “seize Nature as she is.” Back in his studio, relying on his studies as well as his recollection, he would paint his visions—his “memory pieces”, as he called them—of the Ideal landscape, Nature perfected, the paysage composé (the composed landscape). A critic observed about this painting during its display at the 1806 Paris Salon, “One can see the same talent that monsieur Valenciennes bestows on all his landscapes—the perfect sense of linearity, the science of perspective, his lightness of touch and sense of spirituality.”

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (French, 1750-1819), Classical Landscape with Figures Drinking by a Fountain, 1860, oil on canvas. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, and Gift of George Durand-Ruel, by exchange, 2007.37