À propos de l’œuvre
Le Chêne de Bodmer, la route de Chailly, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Famous tree of Fontainebleau in the autumn light · Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau forest W60hand painted reproduction
A gigantic oak unfolds its gnarled trunk and branches throughout the composition. Behind it, the Pavé de Chailly opens in a yellow and green light, while a carpet of red leaves covers the ground. Monet gives this famous Fontainebleau tree an almost sculptural presence, but the filtered light animates each bark, leaf and clearing.
Look at the work
Monumental trunk opens branches above autumn clearing
The oak starts from the lower right, quickly divides into several thick branches then crosses the center and the upper edge. Its dark silhouette frames areas of lighter sky and foliage. On the left, the road or clearing moves away between trees of decreasing dimensions.
The soil receives a seedling of orange, red, yellow and brown leaves. Cooler greens remain in the grass and foliage. On the trunk, touches of gray, blue, green and ocher describe the bark and the light without smoothing out its numerous twists.
The oak is an old and stable mass, but Monet makes it vibrate with the color of autumn and the bursts of sunlight passing through its branches.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
A structure almost entirely based on the tree
The main branches create diagonals and arches that distribute the light openings. The landscape is not placed behind the oak: it is seen through its architecture.
Warm colors announcing the end of the stay
Yellows, greens and oranges filter into the canopy, while red leaves accumulate on the ground. The Met connects this palette to October 1865, shortly before Monet's departure from Fontainebleau.
A pattern known to artists
The tree bears the name of Karl Bodmer, a Swiss painter who exhibited it at the Salon of 1850. Monet took this place frequented since the 1830s and transformed it by direct observation of light.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The visual corresponds to Bodmer's Oak in the Fontainebleau Forest, inventory 64.210 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wildenstein number 60. The image of 2,200 × 1,645 px is preserved at its native definition in a real WebP.
The main branches are not simple lines
They have volume, breaks and color changes. Grey, blue and green must shape their faces before adding warm touches of light.
The road remains visible between the roots and the trees
Its clear passage helps separate the foreground from the background. It should gradually thin without becoming a white ribbon with clean edges.
The carpet of leaves retains a wide variety
Oranges and ochres are mixed with green, brown and gray. This diversity makes the soil natural and avoids a uniform decorative effect.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
Painted in 1865, this oil on canvas measures 96.2 × 129.2 cm. It is kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under inventory 64.210 and listed as Wildenstein 60.
A famous tree from the Fontainebleau forest
The forest became a major center for landscape painters in the 1830s. The oak is named after Karl Bodmer, whose representation exhibited in 1850 helped to make the motif known.
Probably October 1865
The Met observes that the red leaves and autumn light likely place the execution shortly before the end of Monet's months-long stay at Fontainebleau in October 1865.
A landscape linked to Lunch on the Grass
The painting is probably the last of several forest studies linked to the monumental Luncheon on the Grass of 1865 -1866. The scale of the oak and the opening of the clearing correspond to this ambition of great composition.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Respect all major bifurcations of the trunk.
- Let the landscape appear through the branches.
- Maintain balance of greens and red colors.
- Modulate the bark without continuous black contours.
Work sheet
| Title | The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau forest W60 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1865 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 96.2 × 129.2 cm |
| Orientation | Monumental horizontal |
| Conservation | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States |
| Inventory | 64.210 · Wildenstein 60 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This large landscape is suitable for a spacious living room, library or dining room. A walnut, bronze or smoked oak frame accompanies the bark; a linen, olive green or light earth wall reveals the autumn leaves.
