![Robert William Vonnoh - Winter Sun and Shadow [1890]](http://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5505/31192929146_c6eaf41ef7_b.jpg)
Robert Vonnoh's best pictures have that feeling of a first impression, faithfully jotted down in quick strokes of colour. Winter Sun and Shadow was painted while Vonnoh was living in France at an artist colony near the Forest of Fontainebleau. The composition is simple enough-lines receding to the horizon. It is the artist's treatment of light that makes the picture memorable: the raw brilliance of sunlight contrasted with pale, icy shadows.
[North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh - Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 61 cm]