The 100 most famous forests in the painting
From Shishkin to Klimt, a hundred woods, jungles and undergrowth where nature becomes a world.
The forest occupies a unique place in the history of art: refuge, wild territory, mythological setting, laboratory of light or mirror of the soul. This selection brings together exactly one hundred paintings where the trees are not incidental, but truly structure the space, the atmosphere and the meaning of the work.
A morning in a pine forest - Ivan Chichkine
Shishkin makes the sun penetrate between large upside-down pines where three cubs and their mother play. The botanical accuracy, humidity of the moss and depth of the undergrowth have made this scene the most famous forest image of the painting russian.
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The Abbey in an oak forest - Caspar David Friedrich
Friedrich erects the ruins of a Gothic abbey among bare oaks, behind a procession of monks. The forest becomes a place of memory and passage where architecture, dead trees and mist share the same melancholy.
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The dream - Henri Rousseau
A naked woman rests on a couch in the heart of an impossible jungle populated by lions, birds and musicians. Rousseau combines meticulous vegetation and unreal space to give the tropical forest the sovereign logic of a dream.
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Saint George and the Dragon in the Forest - Albrecht Altdorfer
The tiny Saint George faces the dragon under an almost impenetrable vault of foliage. Altdorfer makes the forest the real protagonist, an immense plant world which absorbs the chivalrous episode.
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Birch forest - Gustav Klimt
Klimt aligns the white trunks on a carpet of orange leaves, without visible sky or horizon. The vertical repetition and the dotted surface transform the birch forest into an almost abstract decorative motif.
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The Hunter in the Forest - Caspar David Friedrich
A French soldier sinks into a snowy fir forest, reduced to a dark spot between the trunks. Friedrich contrasts his vulnerability with the silent power of a hostile and infinite nature.
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The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau forest W60 - Claude Monet
Monet isolates an old gnarled oak tree in the Fontainebleau forest and lets light circulate between the branches. The rocky ground, tiny walkers and free foliage announce his impressionist research.
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The forest of Fontainebleau - Théodore Rousseau
Théodore Rousseau built Fontainebleau by large masses of oaks, sky and terrain. His patient observation gives the trees a monumental individuality while retaining the scale of the landscape.
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The Puits Noir stream - Gustave Courbet
Courbet follows a dark stream between the mossy rocks of Puits Noir, near Ornans. The reflective water and thick vegetation make the ravine an almost tactile, cool and secluded space.
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Kindred Spirits - Asher Brown Durand
Durand represents the poets Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant on a Catskills promontory. Both figures remain small in front of the gorge, waterfall and trees, affirming nature as a common source of American art.
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Surprised! /Tiger in a tropical storm - Henri Rousseau
Under oblique rain, a tiger leaps between the lying grass and the agitated branches. Rousseau invents a mental jungle where each leaf accentuates the sudden violence of the storm.
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The Heart of the Andes - Frederic Edwin Church
Church brings together valley, river, palm trees, rainforest and snow-capped peaks in a spectacularly precise Andean panorama. The vegetation leads the gaze from the lush foreground to the light of the high mountains.
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The Grizzly Giant Redwood, Mariposa Grove, California - Albert Bierstadt
Bierstadt places a character at the foot of the Grizzly redwood tree to make its colossal scale noticeable. The vertical trunks and shadow of the grove celebrate the majesty of California's forests.
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The Sacred Wood dear to the arts and muses - Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Puvis de Chavannes brings together the Muses and the arts in an orderly wood around a pool and a temple. The matte palette and calm gestures transform the forest into an ideal space of knowledge and harmony.
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Island of the Dead - Arnold Bocklin
A funeral boat approaches a rocky islet filled with black cypresses and architecture carved into stone. Böcklin condenses the forest into a vertical, silent and inaccessible mass, which has become one of the most famous symbolist landscapes.
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Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk - Thomas Gainsborough
Gainsborough unfolds Cornard Wood under a moving sky, with paths, cattle and travelers mixed with tall trees. The composition combines English observation and dramatic breath inherited from the Baroque landscape.
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Middelharnis Avenue - Meindert Hobbema
Hobbema traces a straight avenue between very tall trees which lead towards the village of Middelharnis. The central perspective gives this simple path a striking and almost modern depth.
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Beech forest - Gustav Klimt
In this beech forest, Klimt fills the canvas with fine trunks and red leaves until it eliminates any escape. The gaze is invited to enter into a continuous colored material rather than following a story.
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Grove of masts - Ivan Chichkine
Shishkin shows the pines intended for the masts as natural architecture around a stream. The precision of the bark, branches and moist soil gives the forest an exceptional physical presence.
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PINE FOREST - Ivan Chichkine
At the edge of a pine forest, Shishkin contrasts the light sand with the dark masses of conifers. The spaced trunks and the depth of the path make you feel the extent of the forest reserve.
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Fontainebleau Forest W59 - Claude Monet
Monet paints Fontainebleau with dark and light touches that fragment the trees, the ground and the air. The forest is no longer a stable setting but a succession of luminous sensations.
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Fontainebleau, in the Forest - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Corot lets a silver opening appear behind a curtain of trees and foliage. Its range of muffled greens gives the Fontainebleau woods a silent and familiar softness.
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Undergrowth in Fontainebleau - Narcisse Diaz de la Peña
Diaz de la Pena sets up a group of trees at the edge of a clearing under a heavy sky. The deep foliage and luminous touches make the undergrowth a theater of shadows and clearings.
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Forest Interior - Paul Cézanne
Cézanne piles up trunks, rocks and foliage in colorful planes which seem to tilt on top of each other. The interior of the forest becomes a laboratory where depth is reconstructed by the painting.
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Trees and undergrowth, F309a - Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh covers the undergrowth with a network of greens, yellows and blues covered with thin trunks. The small repeated touches reflect plant proliferation as a continuous energy.
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Undergrowth, F306 - Van Gogh
The undergrowth floor unfolds in large yellow and green layers under tight trees. Van Gogh circulates light through the direction of brushstrokes rather than through traditional modeling.
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Path in the Woods, F309 - Vincent van Gogh
A pink path sinks between blue trees and golden foliage. Van Gogh uses the path as a sharp line that opens up the density of the wood and draws the eye.
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The Magic Forest - Edvard Munch
Munch transforms the forest into twisted silhouettes, pale sky and purple colors, around a small figure on the path. The real landscape becomes a psychological space charged with worry.
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Forest in Oele - Piet Mondrian
Mondrian vibrates Oele's trunks with long purple and blue lines placed on the reddish ground. The repetition of verticals announces its gradual transition from the observed tree to the abstract structure.
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The Equatorial Jungle - Henri Rousseau
Rousseau stacks giant leaves, ferns, flowers and animals under light without a visible source. This equatorial jungle is less a geographical location than an autonomous world built by the rhythm of shapes.
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Lion in the jungle - Henri Rousseau
A lion advances into a nocturnal jungle where the moon rises behind the palm fronds. The stylized plants and the contrast of the silhouettes give the scene the calm force of a primitive vision.
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The Walk in the Forest - Henri Rousseau
A woman dressed in red walks between thin, almost bare trees, which open the forest onto a village. Rousseau associates an ordinary walk with a deliberately strange and silent perspective.
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Deer in the forest I - Franz Marc
Franz Marc fragments deer and trunks into brown, green and red facets. The animals no longer stand out from the forest: they share its rhythm and its colorful material.
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Deer in the forest II - Franz Marc
In Deer in the Forest II, the blue and green planes enclose the animal in a crystalline architecture. The forest becomes the visual expression of a deep unity between living things and their environment.
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Tiger in the jungle - Franz Marc
The tiger of Franz Marc is constructed by angles and colored surfaces that compress its body in vegetation. Geometric tension replaces any naturalistic narrative.
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Mystical wood - John William Waterhouse
Waterhouse brings together young women in ancient wood around a white animal and fruit-laden branches. The costumes, trunks and darkness give the place the atmosphere of a medieval legend.
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In the enchanted forest - Franz von stuck
Von Stuck places nudes between lit birches and almost total darkness. The opposition between white bark, body and black background transforms the forest into a mythical and secret scene.
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A forest at dawn with a deer hunt - Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens enlivens a forest at dawn with a deer hunt whose riders get lost between the trunks. The diagonals, dogs and clearings give the landscape a theatrical energy.
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The Deer in the Forest - Gustave Courbet
Courbet hides a deer in a chaos of rocks, foliage and damp shade. The animal appears to belong to the very relief of the forest rather than simply inhabiting it.
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Deer in the Fontainebleau forest - Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur observe the deer of Fontainebleau in a cold and almost bare clearing. The anatomical precision and restraint of the landscape give the scene a natural gravity.
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Rain in the oak forest - Ivan Chichkine
The rain darkens a long avenue of oaks where a few figures advance under the branches. Shishkin makes the wet path shine and gives the forest air a palpable density.
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The forest before the storm - Ivan Chichkine
Before the storm, birches and pines bow under heavy skies while a clearing hits the ground. Shishkin contrasts the fragility of young trunks with the threatening mass of time.
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Fir forest I - Gustav Klimt
Klimt completely closes the space with red and brown pines, tight like the threads of a tapestry. The small flowers on the ground introduce luminous accents into this austere verticality.
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Young girl in a white dress in a forest - Gustav Klimt
A young girl in a white dress appears in profile between purple and green trunks. Klimt almost makes the figure disappear in the forest, reduced to a light form among the plant rhythms.
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Wood Road W58 - Claude Monet
Monet follows a gray path which crosses the trees of Chailly and gets lost in a pale light. The simplicity of the pattern allows him to study the succession of shadows under the foliage.
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Undergrowth in the Saint-Germain forest W750 - Claude Monet
In the forest of Saint-Germain, Monet envelops the undergrowth in red, green and bluish tones. Depth is born from the vibration of the keys rather than from the design of the trunks.
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Path in the forest, 1874 -1877 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Renoir paints a path covered in leaves between trees with dissolved contours. The light crosses the stage in colored spots and transforms the walk into an atmospheric sensation.
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Walk in the woods, Madame Le Cœur and her children - Renoir
Madame Le Cœur and her children advance under a high vault of trees, reduced to small silhouettes. Renoir contrasts their light movement with the dark verticality of the trunks.
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Forest trail - Pierre Bonnard
Bonnard winds a clear path between blue and green trees which almost close the view. Color reconstructs wood as an intimate, unstable and decorative space.
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The Forest Road - Paul Cézanne
Cézanne carves the forest road between rocks and pines in large green, blue and ocher planes. The passage seems dug into the very material of the canvas.
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La Clairière, 1867 - Paul Cézanne
A gap of luminous grass opens under a mass of dark trees. Cézanne reduces the clearing to the essential opposition between shade, foliage and open space.
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In the forest of Fontainebleau - Paul Cézanne
In Fontainebleau, inclined trunks and rocks intersect in a tight composition. Cézanne refuses the picturesque to analyze the deep structure of the forest terrain.
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The Pond in the Forest, circa 1867-1868- Edgar Degas
Degas painted an almost immobile pond, lined with trees whose reflections thickened the green surface. The absence of figures and the tight framing give the place an unusual calm in his work.
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The edge of the Fontainebleau Forest - Alfred Sisley
Sisley looks at the edge of Fontainebleau as the trees strip and the sky becomes visible. The reds, purples and grays precisely reflect a season of transition.
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Fontainebleau Forest - Frédéric Bazille
Bazille contrasts a bright clearing with large dark trees which frame the landscape. The horizontal format gives the Fontainebleau woods the width of a panorama.
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The Forest of Fontainebleau - Gustave Courbet
Courbet accumulates broken rocks, branches and foliage in dark, thick matter. The forest appears as a mineral as well as a plant reality.
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Fontainebleau - Black oaks of Bas-Préau - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Corot isolates the black oaks of Bas-Bréau on light ground where light circulates. The massive silhouettes of the trees dominate the few figures and give the landscape its gravity.
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Fontainebleau - At the Apremont gorges - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
In the Apremont gorges, Corot divides rocks, oaks and blue sky into solidly balanced masses. Its soft light makes this rugged relief welcoming.
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The Oaks of Apremont - Théodore Rousseau
Apremont oaks rise like a compact group in the middle of an open plain. Théodore Rousseau gives their gathered crowns the scale of a collective monument.
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The great oak, forest of Fontainebleau - Théodore Rousseau
A large Fontainebleau oak dominates the composition, surrounded by thinner trees and a moving sky. Rousseau treats each branch as a sign of a long natural history.
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Exit from the forest in Fontainebleau, setting sun - Théodore Rousseau
At the exit of the forest, the setting sun transforms the clearing into a golden opening. The dark trunks frame this light and accentuate the passage between confinement and horizon.
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Barbizon Forest in Autumn - Georges Seurat
Seurat observes Barbizon in autumn in small, still free pink, blue and green touches. The trunks and soil are already dissolving in a search for optical vibration.
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Forest alley, Barbizon - Georges Seurat
A clear path crosses the Barbizon trees and leads to an area of light. Seurat simplifies shapes while retaining the humidity and depth of the wood.
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Path in the forest - Paul Gauguin
Gauguin places a small figure on a path that cuts through a mutedly colored forest. The trees are organized into vertical bands and give the landscape a deliberately decorative construction.
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The edge of the forest (III) - Paul Gauguin
At the edge, Gauguin opens the woods onto a meadow where the greens become lighter. The simplification of the masses announces its desire to go beyond immediate impression.
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Forest on the way to Borre - Edvard Munch
On the way to Borre, Munch gives the fir trees an almost human shape and the mountains an undulating outline. The landscape seems animated by an inner tension independent of the characters.
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Two People on the Way to the Forest - Edvard Munch
Two walkers advance on a wet track between a moor and sparse trees. Munch stretches the path to the horizon and makes walking an experience of shared solitude.
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elm forest in summer - Edvard Munch
In the elm forest in summer, the trunks twist around a green and blue undergrowth painted with large strokes. The vigor of the gesture reflects plant growth as a physical force.
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Forest in the snow - Edvard Munch
Snow covers the ground between frontally arranged purple and brown pines. Munch uses cold contrasts to give the winter forest an almost monumental presence.
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spruce forest - Edvard Munch
The black and yellow spruces stand under an intense blue sky, their shapes reduced to repeated points. The motif becomes for Munch an expressive writing of verticality.
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Autumn oaks - George Inness
Inness brings together red oaks, pastures and stormy skies in late-day light. The forest blends into the atmosphere rather than describing itself tree by tree.
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Birch trees in autumn - Frederic Edwin Church
Church places a few white birches in front of a red and green autumn mass. The contrast of the luminous bark makes the depth of the undergrowth visible.
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Autumn, a wooden path - Sanford Robinson Gifford
An autumn path forms a brown and golden tunnel which closes around the walker. Gifford makes distant light the natural purpose of the entire composition.
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Wood in Autumn (1907) - Egon Schiele
Schiele draws the trunks and branches of an autumn wood with nervous and dark lines. The empty path and red leaves give the landscape a striking austerity.
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Ridgeside Autumn Forest - Paul Sérusier
Sérusier transforms the wooded side into superimposed red, green and yellow bands. The autumn forest becomes a colorful construction where the relief reads like a pattern.
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Grove by a lake (Autumn) - Isaac Levitan
Levitan borders a calm lake with a dark grove and a line of reeds. Autumn appears in a few muted hues and in the silence of the water.
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Fir trees laden with snow - Bruno Liljefors
Liljefors loads the young fir trees with snow under a clear blue sky. The folded branches and quick touches make the weight of the cold without losing the liveliness of the landscape.
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fir forest with waterfall - Caspar David Friedrich
Friedrich descends a waterfall between rocks and tight fir trees to the bottom of a valley. Clear water opens a vertical breach in the dark mass of the forest.
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Fir trees and storm clouds - Albert Bierstadt
Bierstadt pits a row of fir trees against storm clouds that open into an almost supernatural light. The American landscape takes on the dramatic grandeur of a cosmic scene.
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Rocks, fir trees, stream - Gustave Courbet
Courbet encloses a stream between rocks and fir trees under cold light. The depth of the ravine is born from contrasts of materials, from smooth water to rough walls.
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The Estaque seen through the pines - Paul Cézanne
Cézanne sees the Estaque through large pines which divide the view into several planes. The trunks together structure the village, the sea and the distant mountain.
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Pines and Rocks, Fontainebleau - Paul Cézanne
In Fontainebleau, pines and rocks fit together in blue, green and ocher volumes. Cézanne transforms the natural tangle into a solid construction without removing the sensation of the place.
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The Pine Forest - Pierre Bonnard
Bonnard opens his pine forest onto a very clear marine horizon. Dark trees act as a curtain in front of the light and give the landscape a decorative depth.
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Pines near the sea - Edvard Munch
Munch groups a few pines above a blue sea, among rocks treated in wide contours. Their compact silhouette stands up to the extent of the coastline.
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Pines at sunset - Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh cuts the dark pines against a yellow and red sunset sky. The twisted branches and the movement of the lines make the forest a fiery vision.
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Girl in White in the Woods, F8 - Vincent van Gogh
A young girl in white stands near a huge trunk in brown and green wood. Van Gogh contrasts his small vertical silhouette with the ancient power of trees.
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Two Women in the Woods, F1665 - Vincent van Gogh
Two women advance between tight trunks under a yellow light. Their presence gives a human measure to this dark and humid Brabant forest.
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The Grove - Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh's Grove is a whirlwind of greens and yellows where trees almost lose their outline. The brush follows the growth of the branches and fills the entire space with energy.
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A shepherd with his flock in a wooded landscape - Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens leads a shepherd and his flock under tall trees that open the landscape to the sky. The forest protects the animals while giving the pastoral scene a majestic depth.
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Evening landscape with wood cart - Peter Paul Rubens
A cart loaded with wood crosses an evening landscape between the trunks and reflections of a river. Rubens unites rural work, atmospheric light and movement in a vast composition.
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Woodland Glen - Asher Brown Durand
Durand follows a stream between rocks covered in moss and very large trees. The luminous gap at the bottom transforms the wooded valley into a natural route for the eye.
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Woodland Pool - George Inness
Inness paints a pond surrounded by foliage and trees whose shapes dissolve in a golden mist. The forest becomes a memory and atmosphere rather than a botanical inventory.
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Woodland River - James Ensor
Ensor looks at a forest river under a pale sky, with dark and almost still banks. The sobriety of the palette retains the humid freshness of the place.
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Woodland Path - Lovis Corinth
Corinth turns a path between blue, green and purple trees painted with a quick movement. The deformation of the trunks accentuates the sensation of walking in the woods.
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A deer in the forest - Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur grabs a deer leaping in the darkness, its muscles tense and its eyes open. The dark ground and branches transform his escape into a dramatic moment.
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Shepherdess sitting on the edge of the forest - Jean-François Millet
Millet places a shepherdess seated at the edge, her hooves and staff visible in the shadows. The forest closes the background while the figure concentrates all the gravity of the peasant rest.
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The Alley in the Undergrowth, Amfreville - Édouard Vuillard
Vuillard reduces the Allée d'Amfreville to a light ribbon between delicately superimposed trunks and foliage. The soft touch gives the undergrowth the privacy of a private garden.
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In the woods - Bouguereau
Bouguereau depicts a young mother carrying a child in a bright wood. The precision of the faces and clothing gives the forest setting a protective softness.
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The Enchanted Forest - Edvard Munch
Munch drags two small figures into a forest with disproportionate green and blue trees. The unreal colors and unstable perspective make the enchantment as fascinating as it is disturbing.
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Young Oaks - Vilhelm Hammershøi
Hammershøi isolates young oaks on a gray plain under a veiled sky. The simplicity of the landscape and the restraint of colors give the trees a meditative solitude.
View the work and order it reproductionThe forest, a world larger than the landscape
From the pines meticulously observed by Shishkin to the dream jungles ofHenri Rousseau, the forest allows painters to confront human beings with a nature that goes beyond them. It can protect, lead astray, frighten or open a passage towards the sacred and the imaginary.
These hundred works show above all that no forest resembles another: monumental in Friedrich, luminous in Monet, decorative in Klimt, tormented in Munch and almost abstract in Cézanne or Mondrian. Each painting thus maintains a unique way of entering under trees.
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