Charles-François Daubigny

Charles-François Daubigny was a French landscape painter who helped pave the way for Impressionism. Born in Paris in 1817 into a family of artists, he became a key member of the Barbizon School, a group who left the studio to paint the countryside more directly. He took that idea further than most, even fitting out a small boat as a floating studio so he could paint rivers from the water itself.

His loose, fresh handling of light on water and foliage struck some older critics as unfinished, but it deeply impressed younger painters like Monet. Daubigny used his standing on exhibition juries to support those newcomers when the establishment wanted to shut them out. His riverbanks and orchards form a natural bridge between the earthy Barbizon landscapes and the brighter Impressionism that followed.