Rousseau was one of the founders of the Barbizon School, a community of artists who had been working together on site in nature since the 1830s. Open-air painting had already been practised in France before, but was not yet considered an autonomous art. Rousseau's ideal of the Paysage intime was intended to render the landscape as the artist perceived it while painting. The evening landscape could have been painted near Barbizon. The scenery is simple: trees, a meadow with large stones, a pond, a woman. The light, on the other hand, defines the high sky in shades of gold and red and makes the entire landscape glow magnificently.