The success of the wonderful painting by Corot is the use of light. The contrast of light and dark for this sunset painting is the value of the work.
Even though this painting is dark over-all the small amount of light that comes from the setting sun more than compensates for it. This painting is quiet and somber not gloomy. The dark tones of green and brown are permeated with lighter tones that are worked into the canvas. There is no real dark section in this painting when you really examine it. When you first see the piece it appears overwhelmingly dark with a section of light. However, as you draw closer and look more carefully you will see many lighter tones juxtaposed together to make this a rich canvas.
On the banks over-looking the stream you can see the cluster of structures that make up the small village. As small as these buildings appear Corot is able to add tone of light and dark to them to bring out their form. No real use of perspective is utilized here but there is enough light and dark detailing on the buildings to give them solid form.
Below on the right bank of the river you can see a naked youth either getting in or out of the water. You cannot tell the sex of the figure for it is too vaguely rendered to offer us exacting details, but the sex of the figure is of minor concern here, what matters is that here is a living breathing person in the scene providing us a sense of reference to our humanity. The rocks and foliage around the figure are almost sketched in for there is no real detail that you can see, mostly suggestive strokes offering us a sense of the pastoral.
The real strength of the painting is the sunset. The large amount of dark tones give greater accent to the small percentage of light. You can see the red/orange tone of the sun just below the center. This tone is echoed in the clouds (the lower portion of them). If you look carefully you will see that the blue tone of the sky gets ever so dark as you move away from the sunset and it is at it's darkest blue in the very top left corner of the painting. It is the dramatic effect of the dark against the light in this painting that is striking and draws our attention to this fine piece.
