P19

Landscape with Peasants and Herd
Author: Jean Baptiste Nicolas Pillement
Origin: France
Dating: 18th century
Material: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions (cm): 98 x 69
Owner: novobanco
Inv. no.: P19

«As a landscape artist of great sensitivity to the natural world, Jean Baptiste Nicolas Pillement aligns with the aesthetic discourse of the Enlightenment, centred on the interest in the relationship between humans and nature. His artistic journey was quite uncommon for his time. Driven by both a curious spirit and the need for financial stability, Pillement was an indefatigable traveller, a keen observer of the world around him, interested in the new values of direct observation of the landscape, its atmospheric changes and its vast array of natural resources, whether vegetal, mineral or aquatic. In search of work and new clients, he lived in several European countries. He worked in his native France, but also in Spain, Italy, England, Austria, Warsaw and Portugal, which he visited several times and where he resided between 1780 and 1786. Although he is essentially associated with decorative painting – which indeed is a part of his work – Pillement belongs to a whole generation of 18th century painters who were already seeking to paint outdoors – at a time when there were few technical means to do so – and who, through their way of looking at the landscape as a whole and considering it as a subject of painting in its own right, capable of generating feelings and emotions, paved the way for the naturalistic painting of the following century.

In this fluvial and rocky landscape, with diverse vegetation, the figures are framed within nature itself, as if they were part of it. The peasants, men, women and children, depicted in a moment of interruption from their rural activities, hold the same protagonism in the painter’s eyes as the trees, shrubs, the river in the foreground or the mountains that unfold on the horizon. Pillement makes the most of the expressive resources of nature, which he observes minutely and translates into the gradation of colours and the placement of light, capturing the physical atmosphere of the place and the bucolic tranquillity of the various groups of figures. His qualities as a colourist are evident here, in the subtle range of multiple shades of greens and blues that extend the landscape to the horizon, converging towards the clear blue sky; and in the tiny white brushstrokes that he applies to his figures as small tremors of light, which he himself defined as “le picant du clair obscur”. In the foreground, the tones are darker, in the greens, browns, and ochres of the rocks, river and shrubs. The light – concentrated on the groups of figures, whose shadow is projected on the light earth of the soil – reveals the desire to capture the atmospheric snapshot of a specific moment of the day. Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), whose landscape painting influenced Pillement, stated that “the hour chosen to paint had to be felt throughout the painting.” Let us not forget that, at the end of the 18th century, this was a real challenge. The technical means of painting made outdoor work difficult, which was executed in sketches and painted in the studio. The paint tube – which would allow artists to have the necessary colours always at hand, regardless of the climate and the length of time spent outdoors – only appeared in the 1830s, completely revolutionizing the work of painters.

Pillement’s work influenced several Portuguese artists, not only in landscape painting but also in ornamental and mural painting. In 1782, Pillement settled in Porto, at Porta do Olival, and opened a drawing and painting school where Domingos Francisco Vieira and his son – Francisco Vieira, known as the Portuense – were among his students. The Painting Collection of the Novo Banco includes five paintings by Jean Baptiste Pillement.»
Ana Paula Rebelo Correia (Technical consultant for the novobanco Painting Collection)