C. TROYON
This oneness of inanimate and animate nature is less completely realised in the art of Constant Troyon (1810–1865), who, having been trained as a porcelain-painter, was subsequently attracted by the romanticism of Dupré, but followed such Dutch masters as Paul Potter in subordinating the landscape to the cattle. It is for this reason that Troyon is known to the public as a “cattle-painter” rather than as a landscape painter. At the same time, he was a close observer of the effects of light on fields and meadows, which he rendered with a skill only rivalled by the solidity, the suggestion of weight and movement, the well-accentuated forms and sinuosities of his cattle. The huge canvas Oxen going to Work (No. 889) is an unrivalled achievement of its kind—a piece of realism that is not without poetry and grandeur. Next to it in importance ranks the Return to the Farm (No. 890). Among the eleven Troyons (Nos. 2906–2916) of the Thomy Thiéry Bequest, the Morning (No. 2909) strikes a more cheerful and hopeful note than is this artist’s wont.
Another artist of this group, who devoted himself almost exclusively to the painting of sheep, is Charles Jacque (1813–1894), from whose brush the Louvre owns the Flock of Sheep in a Landscape (No. 430a), a characteristic work of unusually large dimensions.