Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (July 26, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape painter.

The art of Corot

Corot worked in the style of the realists and romantics of this time. Of the painters classed in the Barbizon school, Corot's art is more individual than Rousseau's, whose works are more strictly traditional; more poetic than that of Daubigny, who is, however, Corot's greatest contemporary rival; and in every sense more beautiful than Jean-François Millet, who thought more of stern truth than of aesthetic feeling.

Related Topics:
Realists - Romantics - Barbizon school - Rousseau - Daubigny - Jean-François Millet

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Historians somewhat arbitrarily divided his work into periods, but the point of division is never certain, as he often completed a picture years after he began it. In his early period he painted traditionally and "tight" — with minute exactness, clear outlines, and with absolute definition of objects throughout. After his 50th year his methods changed to breadth of tone and an approach to poetic power, and about 20 years later, from about 1865 onwards, his manner of painting became full of mystery and poetry. In his final 10 years he became the "Père (Father) Corot" of Parisian artistic circles, where he was regarded with personal affection, and acknowledged as one of the five or six greatest landscape painters the world has seen, along with Hobbema, Claude, Turner and Constable.

Related Topics:
1865 - Hobbema - Claude - Turner - Constable

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Corot approached his landscapes more traditionally in than is usually believed. By comparing even his late period tree-painting and arrangements those of Claude, as that which hangs in the Bridgewater gallery, the similarity in methods is seen.

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Besides landscapes, of which he painted several hundred, Corot produced a number of prized figure pictures. These were mostly studio pieces, executed probably with a view to keep his hand in with severe drawing, rather than with the intention of producing pictures. Yet many of them are fine compositions, and in all cases the colour is remarkable for its strength and purity. Corot also executed a few etchings and pencil sketches.

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