Barbizon, France

Jean Cocteau‘s painting at the Chapel of Saint-Blaise des Simples in the village of Milly-la-Foret near the Fontainebleau Forest.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

“The Cyclops,” by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, which is on display near Milly-la-Foret.   (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

A beautiful spring walk along the River Seine in Paris.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

Barbizon, a village southeast of Paris on the edge of Fontainebleau Forest, gave its name to the Barbizon school of painters.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

Rhinocéros by Henri Alfred Jacquemart stands outside the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

A woman sits outside the Jean-Francois Millet museum in the village of Barbizon, where the artist settled with his wife and nine children in 1849.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

The carousel on the Place Napoleon Bonaparte in Fontainebleau.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

A painter at work in the Louvre Museum.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

Monet’s “Dejeuner sur l’herbe” (circa 1865) at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris was partly painted near Barbizon.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

An art history lecture at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, which displays some of the landscapes by the 19th century artists who created them in the Barbizon area.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

A room at the Auberge des Alouettes in the village of Barbizon.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)

A room in the restored Auberge Ganne in Barbizon, visited by early En Plein Air painters.  (Susan Spano / Los Angeles Times)