A mixture of tender sentiments and soft voluptuousness

Stendhal's memoir The Life of Henry Brulard describes his childhood in Grenoble in the 1790s, followed by his departure for Paris and entry into Napoleon's army, and breaks off when he still only seventeen, having just crossed the Great St. Bernard Pass and descended to Milan, the city he would fall in love with. There is a lot about his various tutors, including a drawing master  he had around 1795 (when he was twelve) called M. Le Roy: 'a very polite Parisian, dried-up and enfeebled, aged by the most excessive debauchery.' Stendhal goes on to describe a landscape painting that inspired his own sensual thoughts...  

‘In M. Le Roy’s studio there was a large and beautiful landscape: a steep mountainside seen from very close to, decorated with tall trees; at the foot of the mountain a stream, shallow but broad and limpid, flowed from left to right at the foot of the last trees. In it, three almost, or not almost, naked women were gaily bathing. This was almost the one point of light in that canvas of three and a half feet by two and a half. … This landscape … was a mixture of tender sentiments and soft voluptuousness. To bathe like that with attractive women! … All this, it may be sensed, is quite independent of the merits of the landscape which was probably a dish of spinach with no aerial perspective.’

The text of Henry Brulard is full of drawings - diagrams really: maps, floor plans and graphs illustrating his thoughts and actions. The one below shows what Stendhal could recall of this landscape painting. At the top it says 'M. Le Roy's landscape' and then the picture is annotated: 'Sky.' - 'Verdure' - 'Admirable verdure' - 'Young girls holding up their skirts or young goddesses.' - 'Water.' - (underneath) - 'A. Tall trees such as I like them'. Whether the actual painting was any good or a mere 'dish of spinach' we will never know.