"In the group of [ Barbizon school-]painters beyond the average, Diaz de la Pena is the great artist of the fantastical. Anything serves him as a pretext for bringing to light his marvelous aptitude as a colorist.. .He renders the enchantments of the landscape flooded with sunshine or the forest plunged in luminous twilight, with beams filtering through the thick leafage; he dazzles the eye with all the seductions of a grand colorist.. .He is the grand virtuoso of the palette, making sport of difficulties. With him everything is of the first impulse; his work is thrown off with brio; the enchantment of the color carries it along.."