François Boucher 
1755 

Oil on canvas 

France  

The Four Seasons: Autmn 

21 3/8 x 28 5/8 in. (54.3 x 72.7 cm) 

This is a piece of a young woman and a young man, bodies shown fully agents a light washed background with natural tones. We can see she has a basket of fruits as well as the young man clasping some in her lap in the center. The woman’s dress is a cream color, quite natural while the man wears orange and blue showing a burst of color. They seem to be on the outskirts of a woodland area on a nice spring afternoon. The trees on the right seem to be almost curved over almost caving them in for “privacy”, the body language is very loose almost like a romantic tension almost like the man is trying to woo her with flowers that we can see in just above the grapes/fruits in her lap that can suggest a romantic gesture. This could also be the reason of the flowers. Theres any options to suggest they were together the whole time or if he had met up and found her in the forest. Who knows, they could have known each other for some time or had just met in the woods that day and been stunned by her beauty. 

The line in this piece is very fine, it’s clear enough for us to see where it ends and where it’s from in the piece. The line is evidently clearer on the trees and some rocks on the ground.  Theres little line to be seen.  The colors here are quite natural colors, the only bright colors that stand out are the man’s waist coat and trousers. Orange and navy blue, it’s to be noted that he too does have a hat, it can be seen on the floor closer to the foreground, a beige hat with a navy-blue ribbon. This to me shows that he has a softer side, a more poetic and hopeless romantic.  in the whole image there isn’t an awful lot of space, its more focused on the two people in the piece. The space there is left is filled up with rocks, grass and tree stumps, in the background the sky is a very washed blue with white clouds that take up the blue and make it all faded and not too vibrant. Theres a very exposed area in the background but it would have been ruined if anything else was put there, there’s already the tree leaves on the right arch over. The lighting is quite soft in my opinion, there’s not an override of it. The light on the dress make it give texture along with all the clothing. The tree has a silk like sight to it, the tree looks smooth to the touch. The whole piece looks smooth, yet you know the texture on how it would feel if you were to look at it, if it were rough, smooth, sharp. Its lighter in the center where our two people are as if to put the spotlight on and say, “I’m here, look at me”.  The shape is a lot more curved, how it was shaped it’s been blended almost like it’s a tree there aren’t any sharp edges, it’s all very pristine and they have character to them, looking rough but smoothed down rough. 

For me that I can see if no sketchy elements. It’s all done very soft, curved lines almost. The curved lines here for me made this piece look so much softer than it should be, given the sense of something being there. I can see two lines of sight, one where the man and lady are, and once slightly behind them, that’s where the trees end in our field of view. The curved lines at the very front that mold the painting very subtly. The colors used are very harmonious, I would say the only bright colors here are the man’s clothing. A bright spark of orange and blue clash almost disturbing the painting. This tells me he’s very immature, a womanizer that doesn’t love. Although that does go agent what I mentioned about him being love stricken, it could be that this is the one woman he fell for. The intensity of his clothing isn’t so major that it blinds us and gets the viewer to think it doesn’t belong there, it’s just enough to spot and see that it doesn’t really belong there. Compared to the woman’s light clothing, it makes us think that she’s pure, never loved and is naive about his presence, is perhaps why she can sit there so calmly. The background is all the same color just different values and intensity. The theme is spot on, there’s a soft sky with a baby blue mixed with grey white to make it not so intense. The tree branches aren’t brown like you’d expect them to be, they’re mixed in with the lushes’ grass with only minimal accents of a lighter green to show where the light is positioned. 

The space used in this piece is well used. It’s not too big that there would be massive obvious blank spaces. The artist has seemed to make it enough to fit the characters as well as the background could have some space to build so we can see the bigger picture on where it is where its set etc. I especially really like how they made the sky not too big or that would have left out a lot of empty space that couldn’t really be filled. The overall light is very cool, there’s not any harsh light that really ruins it, it all fits the theme of this piece well. The shape for the main subject is like a triangle, it fits them both in the center and shows the focus of the work.  Theres very few straight lines in here, I would say the only straight line are the trees, otherwise it’s all more curved with a natural undertone. The shapes are very hidden here, there’s parts where you can see shapes like on her dress and the man’s hat as well as the trees, otherwise to me it’s not obvious.