Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld

Bidauld, Joseph

French, 1758 - 1846

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Fed by two waterfalls, an olive-green stream with foamy whitewater spills toward us, cascading over rocks and boulders in this vertical painting. Sunlight cuts across the sheer, rust and caramel-brown cliffs that fill the composition beyond the waterfalls, throwing the area closest to us in shadow. The stream is fed by a tall, thin waterfall to our left and a wider, lower waterfall to our right. One dark rock pokes out of the pool at the foot of the waterfalls. Tumbling forward over a broad, horizontal ledge about a third of the way up from the bottom, the stream breaks over massive rocks into fan-shaped cascades. The rushing white water is painted with choppy brushstrokes. Dark green shrubs are tucked into the corners and crevices of the cliffs and rocks.
Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld, View of the Waterfalls at Tivoli, 1788, oil on paper on canvas, Gift of Fern and George Wachter, 2005.140.1

View of the Waterfalls at Tivoli

Jean Joseph Xavier Bidauld · 1788 · oil on paper on canvas ·  Accession ID  2005.140.1

Bibliography

1978

  • Gutwirth, Suzanne. Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld (1758-1846). Exh. cat. Musée Duplessis, Carpentras, 1978.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: 8.