Past Exhibition

Exhibition: Hubert Robert, 1733–1808

A rustic, arched, stone bridge spanning a shallow river nearly fills this horizontal landscape. From low to the ground, we look up into and through a large arch, which occupies the lower half of the picture and frames a view that opens to a wide expanse of calm, pale blue water, wooded green riverbanks, and a misty, distant view of a village and a mountain. The horizon line comes a quarter of the way up the painting, and a smoke-colored cloud formation curves like a backward C against the ice-blue sky above. The bridge structure is made from stacked, sandstone-colored stone blocks to form heavy piers. Vegetation grows on the crumbing bridge and gaps indicate other stones are missing. The bridge’s deck runs across the center of the painting, rising slightly from left to right. Atop it, occupying the top left quadrant of the painting, sits a square stone two-story tower that encloses an arched passage over the bridge’s roadway. Groups of people, small in scale, are positioned on and around the bridge. At the river level, on a platform around a bridge footing, four women do laundry. Two pull sheets from the water and two bend on their knees to wash the linens in the river. They wear long skirts of slate blue, cranberry red, and ochre yellow with pinafores and white blouses rolled up to the elbows, with their hair pinned up. A bearded man in brown trousers, white shirt, and brown hat appears to talk to them. Another woman standing nearby in a dark, slate-gray dress balances a large, dark brown ceramic ewer on her head and reaches to pick up another resting at her feet. Warm yellow light illuminates this scene and the underside of the bridge, and reflects on the river. On the bridge deck above, a brown steer is herded across the bridge by a person wearing a wide brown hat, while three people in red, slate-blue, and white clothing are about to pass through the tower passage on the left. Immediately above them, a woman in a white blouse and head scarf appears at a small balcony with what looks like a red dress draped over it and gestures with an extended arm toward a white cat crouched on a railing below. Another woman to our right, in a brown dress, white blouse, and brown hair, stands at the top of a flight of steps leading up the far side of the tower with her back toward us, and she gazes out at the view. On the water below, a small boat with several people is rowed across the river in the middle distance. In a shadowed area at the foot of the bridge, closer to us, a man stands wearing a pointed hat, blue jacket with buttons, and high boots with a sword tucked under his arm. Behind him, a woman in a dark green dress and kerchief sits on a stone step. Both look toward the scene under the bridge with the washerwomen.
Hubert Robert, The Ponte Salario, c. 1775, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.50

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Northeast Galleries
A rustic, arched, stone bridge spanning a shallow river nearly fills this horizontal landscape. From low to the ground, we look up into and through a large arch, which occupies the lower half of the picture and frames a view that opens to a wide expanse of calm, pale blue water, wooded green riverbanks, and a misty, distant view of a village and a mountain. The horizon line comes a quarter of the way up the painting, and a smoke-colored cloud formation curves like a backward C against the ice-blue sky above. The bridge structure is made from stacked, sandstone-colored stone blocks to form heavy piers. Vegetation grows on the crumbing bridge and gaps indicate other stones are missing. The bridge’s deck runs across the center of the painting, rising slightly from left to right. Atop it, occupying the top left quadrant of the painting, sits a square stone two-story tower that encloses an arched passage over the bridge’s roadway. Groups of people, small in scale, are positioned on and around the bridge. At the river level, on a platform around a bridge footing, four women do laundry. Two pull sheets from the water and two bend on their knees to wash the linens in the river. They wear long skirts of slate blue, cranberry red, and ochre yellow with pinafores and white blouses rolled up to the elbows, with their hair pinned up. A bearded man in brown trousers, white shirt, and brown hat appears to talk to them. Another woman standing nearby in a dark, slate-gray dress balances a large, dark brown ceramic ewer on her head and reaches to pick up another resting at her feet. Warm yellow light illuminates this scene and the underside of the bridge, and reflects on the river. On the bridge deck above, a brown steer is herded across the bridge by a person wearing a wide brown hat, while three people in red, slate-blue, and white clothing are about to pass through the tower passage on the left. Immediately above them, a woman in a white blouse and head scarf appears at a small balcony with what looks like a red dress draped over it and gestures with an extended arm toward a white cat crouched on a railing below. Another woman to our right, in a brown dress, white blouse, and brown hair, stands at the top of a flight of steps leading up the far side of the tower with her back toward us, and she gazes out at the view. On the water below, a small boat with several people is rowed across the river in the middle distance. In a shadowed area at the foot of the bridge, closer to us, a man stands wearing a pointed hat, blue jacket with buttons, and high boots with a sword tucked under his arm. Behind him, a woman in a dark green dress and kerchief sits on a stone step. Both look toward the scene under the bridge with the washerwomen.
Hubert Robert, The Ponte Salario, c. 1775, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.50

Overview: One of the most prominent artists of his era, Hubert Robert is perhaps best known today as “Robert of the Ruins,” the nickname bestowed on him by the eighteenth-century philosopher, critic, and encyclopedist Denis Diderot. Indeed, Robert loved and depicted ruined structures of all types, whether real or imagined, and not just those of ancient Rome (he lived in Italy for eleven years). He also drew inspiration from scenes he encountered in his native France, including urban renewal projects, Gallo-Roman antiquities, and natural disasters. At the core of his success was his brilliance as a master of the architectural capriccio, in which random monuments from different locales were artfully brought together to create new, completely imaginary landscapes.

In addition to being a talented landscape painter, Robert was a gifted and prolific draftsman, an engaging printmaker, an interior decorator, and a garden designer. Lively, intelligent, and much sought after, this good-humored, well-loved bon vivant moved easily through the most exalted circles of Paris’s society, even though his own parents had been personal attendants in an aristocratic household. He later addressed the demise of this glittering world through representations of contemporary events such as the vandalizing of royalist monuments and the destruction of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution. Imprisoned himself, he narrowly escaped the guillotine and upon his release completed a series of meditative depictions of the newly created Musée du Louvre, where he served as curator until his death in 1808. With some 50 paintings and 50 drawings, this monographic exhibition, coorganized by the National Gallery of Art and the Musée du Louvre, is the first in more than 80 years to encompass his entire career and to survey his achievements as both a painter and a draftsman.

Organization: The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Sponsors: The exhibition is made possible through the leadership support of the Leonard and Elaine Silverstein Family Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Catalog: Hubert Robert. By Margaret Morgan Grasselli and Yuriko Jackall. Washington, D.C. : National Gallery of Art, 2016.

Other Venues: Musée du Louvre, Paris, March 9–May 30, 2016

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