John Henri Moser (1876-1951), French Landscape Near Paris, 1909, oil on canvas, 17 3/4 x 31 3/8 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1935.
Painted while Moser was studying art in Paris, this painting lacks the bold color and loose brushwork that came to dominate the artist’s style when he returned to Utah. In Paris, he was surrounded not only by academic tradition, but by modern art’s many new aesthetic possibilities. Judging from his mature style, he was observing much during this time, even though his own output remained relatively conservative. This painting, and others of the time, show the influence of the Barbizon School of landscape painting, an influential nineteenth-century movement that emphasized painting outdoors.
