Iwill - On The Road - Pastel

Under a cloudy sky, a farmer brings in his cows. Walking on a country road streaked by the shadows of the trees, it seems very tiny in the landscape. In the distance, a few red roofs evoke the prospect of rediscovering the comfort of home after a hard day of peasant labour. In line with the Barbizon School and characteristic of Iwill's works, this peaceful rural scene transcribes a fleeting moment, all impregnated with a particular atmosphere and luminosity. The charm operates in the overall harmony, the artist using soft tones and playing with complementary red-green and blue-orange.
For Iwill, who worked on the motif, "it is […] when evening arrives, when the day is at its decline, that nature becomes large and beautiful: the details disappear, the large masses are accentuated and such and such what seemed banal in bright light almost always becomes superb at nightfall. »[1] Many of his works therefore transcribe the fall of the day, both in oil and in pastel, a technique in which he particularly distinguished himself.
Considered one of its renovators at the end of the 19th century, he was also vice-president of the society Le Pastel, active between 1910 and 1913.

[1] Iwill, “Lettre de M. Iwill”, preface to Karl Robert (Georges Meusnier, dit), Pastel, a practical and complete treatise including the figure and the portrait, the landscape and the still life, Paris, Henri Laurens, sd, p. 6.