Countryside with a Quarry near Champigny (Landscape with a Broken-Down Wall)

In the early eighties Chittussi painted several pictures from the vicinity of Paris, which show the landscape influenced by human activities: quarries, slopes divided by fields and hills furrowed by roads. The brushwork of these pictures tends to be robust: the painting technique with tick, only slightly diluted pastose colours makes use of local tones, enhancing the impression of reality of the scenery- This Countryside with the quarry near Champigny indicates how quickly Chittussi understood and mastered the principles of Barbizon landscape painting. The segment of the countryside is articulated in contrasting light and dark horizontal bands, while pastose colours apllied with a broad brush suggestively indicate both the mass and structure of the broken-down walls and of the quarry.