Announcer: This is a Getty podcast.
[Rising, meditative music]
Lilit Sadoyan: Today we’re exploring trees in Théodore
Rousseau’s mid-19th-century painting, Forest of
Fontainebleau, Cluster of Tall Trees Overlooking
the Plain of Clair-Bois at the Edge of Bas-Bréau.
[Theme music begins]
Hi—I’m Lilit Sadoyan.
I’m a longtime meditation practitioner and museum
educator at Getty.
Thanks for joining me as we bring mindfulness
out of the gallery and into our daily lives.
Today, we’re discovering how to feel rooted and present
like trees through Théodore Rousseau’s landscape painting
of the forest of Fontainebleau.
This episode begins with a breathing exercise to help
relax your body and mind.
We’ll then give a bit of history and context for the
painting, and we’ll close with a grounding tree meditation.
This series is also available as an audio podcast.
If you’d like to step away from a screen for a few
minutes, listen on your favorite podcast app.
Now, if you’re ready, let’s jump in.
[Gong chimes]
[Slow, meditative music begins]
I invite you to close your eyes if that feels
right for you today.
Let’s just begin by taking a few deep breaths together.
In through your nose. [inhales]
Out through your mouth. [exhales]
Deep inhale.
Deep exhale.
One more deep breath in. [inhales]
And a deep breath out. [exhales]
And just let your breathing resume its natural rhythm.
Whenever you’re ready, gently open your eyes.
[Bells chime]
What does it mean for an artist to know a place intimately?
And what does it mean when that place is wild, untamed nature?
In the painting Forest of Fontainebleau, Cluster of
Tall Trees Overlooking the Plain of Clair-Bois at the
Edge of Bas-Bréau, French artist Théodore Rousseau
captured an edge of the forest near his house.
Try to picture the painting in your mind.
This painting is dense with subject matter, but
still fresh and lively.
I can almost smell the earthiness of the forest.
Some areas, such as the foreground of damp earth,
are loosely painted, almost suggested.
Ghostly boulders and broken branches are scattered across
the forest floor towards the bottom of the composition.
But the focus gathers around three trees at the
center left of the painting.
In the middle of the grouping is a great live oak.
Its trunk anchors the scene while its branches
unfurled in sinuous forms, spreading in all directions.
This majestic oak, with its gnarled branches twisting
and coiling, must have held the artist in quiet study.
Two dead trees flank this central oak, like
sharp counterpoints.
The one to the far left of the painting diagonally
points up and out of the frame, its splintered
trunk reflecting light.
The one to the right tilts up to the sky, and its trunk,
speckled with rich greens, seems to get lost in the
foliage of the central oak.
Only upon closer inspection does one see that the top of
the trunk near the top edge of the painting is also fractured.
The contrast between the living and dead trees side by side
evokes the cycle of life.
The canopy of leaves covers three quarters of the painting.
It’s rendered in a wide range of greens, from dark forest
greens and rich shades of emerald to yellowish olive hues
and undertones of umber brown.
To the upper right, however, a patch of gray sky hints
at the cloudy weather.
While closer to the horizon line, which sits about a third
of the way up the canvas, clouds break open to let
the sunlight shine through.
Just beneath this area in the right foreground, barely
visible, are a single herdsman and a group of cattle coming
around the bend and making their way to a body of water.
The bright, opaque reflection of the pond opens
up the dark foreground.
The still water reflects the light, clouds, and even a
couple of cows that have entered the pond to drink some water.
The diminutive size of the cows imbues the trees,
the real protagonists, with even more grandeur.
Théodore Rousseau was dedicated to painting the French
landscape, returning again and again to the forest of
Fontainebleau as a primary source of inspiration.
He grounded his practice in empirical observation and
close engagement with nature.
Beginning in 1836, he spent his summers drawing and painting
in the French countryside.
He would retreat to Paris in the winter months.
By 1847, he bought a house in the small town of Barbizon, just
at the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and he remained
there for the rest of his life.
Rousseau’s work suggests a longing for the slow way of
life he associated with rural existence, at odds with the
modern changes of his time.
He was deeply drawn to the strength and quiet steadfastness
of ancient trees, producing hundreds of sketches in
oil, pencil, and crayon.
The endurance of trees could be interpreted as an
expression of resilience.
Rousseau worked outdoors incessantly.
Going against the standard training at the time,
he grounded his artistic practice in a close engagement
with the natural world.
He painted and sketched directly from nature, en plein air,
or in the open air, that is.
He wasn’t simply gathering material for
his studio paintings.
Rather, his practice carried meaning.
To draw or paint before a tree, or along the forest edge,
was to enter into sustained attention: to stand, to look,
to tune the senses, to breathe alongside the trees, and to
remain long enough for the trees to reveal themselves, a
kind of aesthetic meditation.
In this painting, the physical presence of the artist
outdoors is felt through the immediacy of his brushwork.
The freedom of the handling of paint complicates
how we understand this painting, whether it’s
a sketched or a finished work of art, or somewhere
in between, an ébauche.
He would have started this painting outdoors and
enhanced it in his studio.
Rousseau was experimental in his process.
Brushstrokes of varying width and texture rhythmically
cover the canvas.
The surface is alive with movement.
Long before environmentalism had a name, Rousseau’s work
reflected what has been termed ecological awareness,
the growing realization that humanity does not
stand apart from the natural world, but moves within
as living co-presence.
We are not outside the landscape, we belong to it.
And with this in mind, practicing a grounding
tree meditation helps us feel not only connected
to our environment, but also centered and rooted
in the present moment.
[Meditative music continues]
If you feel comfortable, I invite you to close your
eyes, and if you would prefer to keep your eyes
open, that’s okay, too.
Try to lower your gaze, lower your lids to minimize
visual distraction.
Use this time to go inward.
And adopt a posture in your body that feels
both relaxed yet alert.
Sense into ease and comfort.
Let’s begin again with a few deep breaths,
grounding with each exhale.
So, breath in. [inhales]
And a breath out. [exhales]
Take a deep breath in. [inhales]
And a deep breath out. [exhales]
One more inhale. [exhales]
And exhale. [exhales]
Now just let your breathing resume its natural rhythm.
No need to force or extend anything here.
Just let your body do what it does very naturally.
Allow your body to breathe itself.
And I invite you to cultivate an awareness of your breath here.
Noticing the way in which the breath moves
in and out of the body.
Notice your breath around your nostrils.
Notice your breath around your chest.
Notice your breath in your belly,
soft and present.
And if your mind starts to wander, know that
that’s completely natural.
Your brain is doing its job.
There’s no need to stop the thoughts or clear the mind.
Rather, just notice those thoughts as they arise,
and gently let them go and come back to your breath.
Use your breath as your anchor.
[Silence]
Trees embody such strength and grace.
Let’s explore what it feels like to be one of the trees
in Rousseau’s painting.
Sense into the surface upon which you are
seated or standing.
Feel yourself firmly planted here.
Notice where your body makes contact with a surface.
Feel the support of the earth beneath you.
Feel your weight here and sense gravity.
Be where your feet are.
And imagine that your torso is like the trunk
of a tree, upright
with poise,
standing still.
Imagine that your arms are like branches and that your
fingers are like leaves.
[Silence]
Gently lift the crown of your head up to the sky,
gathering the sunshine.
Notice the difference between the upward lift
and the downward pull.
With each breath,
lifting and rooting.
Inhale, lift.
Exhale, root.
You can imagine that your branches also
reach for the light.
Inhale, reaching.
Exhale, rooting.
Inhale, reaching.
Exhale, rooting.
Sense into the strength and grace of the tree within you.
Be the tree.
Feel the weight of your body.
Feel your roots extending down beneath the earth’s surface.
And notice where your roots make contact with other roots.
Your root system connecting with other trees.
Giving and receiving.
Feel the reciprocity that exists just beneath
the Earth’s surface.
See yourself in this network of connection,
a tree among other trees.
Standing independent, yet interconnected,
coexisting with life all around you.
And if your eyes are closed, I invite you to gently
open them, coming back into the space that you’re in,
bringing your awareness to your environment.
Maybe there are some gentle movements or stretches
that your body needs now.
And keeping this imagery of the tree in mind, as we
return to the world, let’s carry this sense of presence
and connection with us.
And I want to see if we can find different opportunities
to come into contact with trees throughout our day.
Notice their shape.
Pay attention to the colors and textures, the way that the light
hits them, or how they grow.
Try to come into physical contact with a tree.
It’s good for you.
Proven benefits of doing so include the release of feel-good
hormones like oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine,
so it will lower stress and increase calm and help
regulate your nervous system.
Why not even hug a tree today?
Use it as a reminder to be in the present moment and
notice how it makes you feel.
Let’s close our practice today by returning to the breath with
one more full, deep inhale.
And sigh it out. [exhales]
Thank you so much for joining me.
[Meditative music slowly fades out]