(Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Paintings. Gallery 957. Notes of May 24, 2013 - cont.)

(^ The Pool [Memory of the Forest of Chambord]. 1839. Théodore Rousseau [1812-1867]. Metropolitan Museum/ Lehman Collection/ Accession Number: 1975.1.204)

Re. The Pool [Memory of the Forest of Chambord]: Carries the generic title of "Landscape" on the tag next to the painting in the gallery. Cerulean blue sky breaking up into whitish-pink horizon visible in center of horizon between two dominant groupings of trees. The bottom 1/3rd is all dark foreground, so the trees and ground are tangled, autumnal, broken by dappled trunks of birch and shade. 

(^ The Pond [La Mare]. 1855. Théodore Rousseau [1812-1867]. Metropolitan Museum/ Lehman Collection/ Accession Number: 1975.1.205)

Re. The Pond [La Mare]: a little more than 2//3rds of the painting is humid cobalt pale blues and soft grays. Again, the dark, shadowy ground cover and trees here almost to black in their darkest values. Both paintings have a pool of water in the central foreground. This is a reoccurring element in Rousseau's landscape, as is the dominant use of dark foreground.