On the Horizon

about On the Horizon

This hazy watercolor scene by French artist Emile Rampelberg reads like a pastel inversion of "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons" by Joseph Mallord William Turner.

That original painting, completed in 1865, sees the beating heart of London engulfed in flames, the fires blotting out the blue of the sky. Here, Rampelberg has swapped smoke for fog and looks through the haze to the Ile de France and the Cathedral de Notre Dame. The Seine, unlike the stormy Thames, is serene and bathed in pastel tones.