Mood

Mood is the emotion that is evoked through the choice of subject matter, pose of the figures, composition and colour.

Introduction to Modern European Art Meissonier

Meissonier, Campagne de France, 1814, 1864

This wonderful painting by Meissonier is a great example of a mood painting. Some of the major indicators of mood are:

The placement of Napoleon from the centre to the right - note the way he is seated on his horse (the only white horse in the painting) - there is such a strong feeling of grim determination on his face, which is quite distinguished from the rest of the figures.
He sits firmly upright in his saddle, coat bundled tightly around him.
Most of the soldiers riding behind him appear weary, many with their heads bowed, and their clothing is on disarray. They are not riding in close formation.
The muddied snow looks almost like sand and there is almost a sense that they are about to be swallowed up by an ocean.
The colours of the painting are muted - with many greys and brown - even the sky is dull.
The footsoldiers appear as a muted mass, again not in close formation.

This painting—in a small format rather unusual for a painter of military history—indicates Meissonier's taste for seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch painting and demonstrates his nimble, polished style. Despite its smallness, the vast expanse of desolate plain and leaden sky give breadth to the scene as does the dilated perspective around the central figure of the Emperor magnified by a slightly low angle.

The least details are minutely recorded: Napoleon's sprouting beard, the veins on the horse's legs, the snow dirtied by the marching troops. The Director of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Charles Blanc, said that Meissonier "painted grandly in a small size". The artist applied the same meticulous approach, but as a historian this time, to his preparatory research: he collected abundant documentation, questioned many eyewitnesses and tried unsuccessfully to borrow the Emperor's grey coat.

Meissonier's approach was part of the historical realism movement which invaded painting and sculpture under the Second Empire. The episode he has chosen, although it occurred after several victories, announces forthcoming defeats.

There is no action or event, just an atmosphere of loneliness and despondency. The doubts and resignation felt by the officers and the troops are palpable and are opposed to the determination that emanates from the isolated figure of Napoleon. These feelings are accentuated by the colour range: the whole scene uses brown and grey tones, subdued, deadened registers. The protagonists are not trampling virgin snow, but muddy ground.