Oak Tree and Rocks, Forest of Fontainebleau. Artist: Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884). Dimensions: 25.2 x 35.7 cm (9 15/16 x 14 1/16 in.). Date: 1849-52.The Forest of Fontainebleau--forty thousand acres crisscrossed by footpaths and dotted with ancient oaks and anthropomorphic boulders--attracted a generation of painters in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Corot, Daubigny, Rousseau, and others found in the light-dappled woods south of Paris both a spiritual antidote for the tensions of modern urban life and a perfect subject for exploring the physical and expressive properties of their medium, free of academic strictures. Working alongside these pre-Impressionist painters and testing the limits of another medium was Le Gray, a young artist who had recently traded in his paint box and easel for a camera and tripod. <p>In this early work, a unique print formerly in the famed Jammes collection, Paris, Le Gray sought to convey the sensuous experience of the sylvan interior.