OUDRY, Jean-Baptiste
(b. 1686, Paris, d. 1755, Beauvais)

The Park at Arcueil

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Drawing
Musée du Louvre, Paris

In his drawings of the Due de Guise's park at Arcueil Oudry revealed his response to a thoroughly eighteenth-century aspect of nature and art united in a garden setting. At Arcueil there is evidence of man's artful and elegant re-ordering of nature, though nature appears on the point of taking over once more. The trellises look frail under heavy, burgeoning foliage, and trees are encroaching on the limits of the lawns. Out of this enchanted blend Oudry created poetic effects that are the more truly 'natural' for lacking, usually, the presence of people.