“Carriage in the Bois de Boulogne” is a watercolor painting by Berthe Morisot, created around 1889. This piece is associated with the Impressionism movement and depicts a landscape scene. The artwork measures 28.9 x 20.7 cm and is housed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom.
The artwork presents a light-dappled scene of the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris. In the foreground, there are vibrant green brushstrokes representing grass and foliage, with strokes of blue suggesting water. Amidst this greenery, a hint of a path or road cuts across horizontally. In the middle ground, the central feature of the composition is a horse-drawn carriage, rendered with rapid, fluid strokes capturing the fleeting moment, which is characteristic of Impressionism. The horses and figures within the carriage are merely suggested by the artist’s deft, loose strokes. The background is dominated by trees and shrubs, with the play of light and shadow captured through varying hues of green and touches of blues and purples. This scene is typical of Morisot’s style, emphasizing the effects of light and color over detailed representation, evoking the atmosphere of a leisurely afternoon in the park.
