ART REVIEW: "Panoramas" “Panoramas” at the Morgan Library and Museum presents a dozen oil sketches done by various European artists working in the first half of the 19th century. Although done in a number of styles and in different countries, all of these sketches are panoramic landscapes.
According to the Morgan: “The success of a plein-air landscape composition depends in part upon the artist’s strategic choice of vantage point. In the panoramic sketch, the natural world is surveyed from an elevated viewpoint, inviting the viewer to follow an expansive landscape that stretches into the distance. This installation features a selection of oil sketches which, despite their small size, achieve such grand effect, creating the impression that the viewer is granted direct access to the artist’s entire field of vision.” Of the sketches on display, the most successful is one done by Jean Bapiste Camille Corot. The artist was born in Paris in 1796 into a prosperous bourgeois family. The family wanted him to pursue a career in business and so Corot was apprenticed to a draper. However, whatever interest he had in such a career quickly faded and at age 25, he announced his intention to become an artist. His family acquiesced and he was provided with the means to pursue art. Although Corot also did portraits and figure paintings, his primary interest was landscapes. In his use of plein air painting and in his brush work, Corot was a forerunner of the Impressionists. Indeed, Monet, Pissaro, Morisot and Boudin are among the artists who acknowledged their debt to Corot. However, he also differed from the Impressionists in important respects. For example, his pallette was not as vibrant and some of his works reflect the influence of Neoclassicism as well as Realism. An important chapter in Corot's career was a visit he made to Italy from 1825 to 1828. There he developed his plein air painting with views of the Italian countryside and the crumbling Roman monuments. He produced approximately 150 paintings and 200 drawings during this trip. “Landscape at Civita Castellana” was produced during this period. The small size and the fact that it is oils on paper suggests that it may have been intended as notes for a later, more developed studio work. However, the fact that it has been mounted on canvas suggests that the artist recognized that the work was substantial enough to warrant preserving. The painting presents a view from a high vantage point, most likely a hill. Stretching out below is a wide, flat valley nestled in between some steep rocky hills. In the distance, the valley stretches into the blue-grey hills, which eventually merge into a cloudy sky. Corot's style is simple and loose. The features in the landscape - - the hills, trees, fields etc - - are rendered with brief touches of color. There has been no extensive modelling bit none is needed. The vagueness yields a poetic effect. Some of the other panoramas presented in this exhibition are technically more developed. However, they lack that indefinable quality that makes some paintings stand out. Like the Impressionists who followed him, Corot was able to capture a scene in a way that speaks to the viewer. |
“Landscape at Civita Castellana” by Jean Bapiste Camille Corot
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Art review - Morgan Library and Museum - "Panoramas"