MUNKÁCSY Mihály
(1844–1900)

WOMAN CARRYING BRUSHWOOD

1873
Oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
Inv. no. 4647

Woman Carrying Brushwood is one of the most widely known Hungarian paintings: reproductions of it were once among the most popular prints hung in private homes and public places.
It was painted at the Barbizon art colony in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where Munkácsy spent a few months in 1873 at the invitation of his friend and fellow artist László Paál. The artists at the colony were reinventing landscape painting by working outdoors: their brushwork conveyed atmospheric effects, the shimmer of the air, and the play of light and shadow. Woman Carrying Brushwood was executed in this same spirit, and Munkácsy’s qualities elevated him to the forefront of the Barbizon School.
The choice of a figure that fills almost the entire canvas, placed alone in the landscape, is a rare compositional solution in the painter’s oeuvre. Its only “companion piece” is Girl by the Fountain, painted in Colpach but still bearing the traces of the Barbizon School.