A. G. Recolin (XIX-XX) - La battue

Oil on canvas signed A. G. Recolin and dated 1907, it depicts a hunting scene set in a wooded landscape with an autumnal atmosphere. The composition shows a hunter in full action, accompanied by a hunting dog, advancing through the vegetation while several game animals are arranged in the foreground, reinforcing the narrative quality of the scene.

The work is situated within the naturalist and realist traditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a clear focus on the landscape setting. The artist employs a palette of earthy tones, subdued greens and ochres, with reddish touches in the vegetation, suggesting the change of the seasons and lending depth and dynamism to the whole. The brushwork is loose yet controlled, especially evident in the treatment of the foliage and the terrain, while the figures are rendered with greater definition to focus the viewer on the main action.

The landscape does not act merely as a backdrop, but as an essential element of the composition, enveloping the characters and conveying a sense of quiet and contemplation inherent to rural hunting scenes. The light, filtered and slightly diffused, helps create an enveloping and melancholic atmosphere, characteristic of this type of representation from the early twentieth century.

Signed and dated 1907, the work reflects the interest in rural themes and outdoor life, very present in European painting of the period, and constitutes a representative example of genre and landscape painting with figures, marking a transition between late academicism and a more modern sensibility.