An Appreciation:
Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a 19th century French artist whose landscape works were both popular in his lifetime and a significant influence on the Impressionists and modern artists who followed.

Born in Paris on July 17, 1796, Camille Corot came from a prosperous middle class family. His mother was a fashionable milliner whose work was so popular that his father gave up his work as a draper in order to manage his wife's business.

Camille spent much of his youth at boarding schools including the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen. However, he was an indifferent student and spent much of his time admiring nature.

 Corot's father wanted the rather shy and awkward youth to become a merchant. So after Camille returned to Paris following the conclusion of his studies, his father arranged for Camille to be apprenticed to a draper. When that proved unsuccessful, an apprenticeship with another draper was arranged. This too was unsuccessful. Despairing that their son would never be able to earn a living, his parents arranged for him to receive a small allowance. This, combined with the fact that he would live with his parents until their deaths, freed Corot from financial worries.

Corot decided that he would devote his life to art, particularly landscape painting. In pursuit of this dream, Corot enrolled at the Academie Susie in Paris in order to study drawing. He then arranged to study with the landscape artist Achille Etna Michallon who died a few months later but who impressed upon Corot the importance of rendering from nature. Corot then went on to study with Jean-Victor Bertin who had been Michallon's teacher. Bertin had studied with Jacque Louis David and was a Neoclassist. However, Corot only took those elements of that style which suited his own artistic vision.

In those days, study in Italy was a customary part of a young artist's education. Accordingly, in 1826, Corot journeyed to Rome. Departing from the customary, Corot focused on depicting street scenes and Italian peasants rather than copying the works of the great masters. He also made numerous oil sketches and drawings of the Italian countryside.

During his three-year stay in Italy, Corot produced a painting that was accepted by the prestigious Paris Salon called “The Bridge at Nami.” It was the first of more than 100 works Corot would exhibit at the Salon. Much later, Corot would become a member of the Salon jury.

Back in France, Corot's life evolved into a pattern. During the warmer months, he traveled widely through France and occasionally to nearby lands, drawing and making plein air oil sketches. During the colder months, he would retreat to his Paris studio and using the sketches he made during his travels, he would produce works for exhibition.

Early in his travels, Corot became acquainted with the artists of the Barbizon School including Jean-Francois Millet and Theodore Rousseau.

Although Corot managed to get some of his works through the doors of the Salon, many were rejected early in his career. In addition, those that were accepted were hung side by side with numerous works by other artists. To get his work noticed, Corot began to produce works on an increasingly grander scale. In addition, because landscape painting was not highly regarded in the art world, he began introducing figures from the Bible or classical mythology into his paintings. This made them “history paintings” which were highly regarded.

As his career developed, Corot began to make paintings he termed “souvenirs.” In these, he would combine elements from his various sketches to produce composite landscapes, which were populated by figures from literature, mythology and the peasantry. These poetic works became quite popular despite the hostility of some critics.

Corot's career began to blossom in the 1840s. In 1840, the French government purchased one of his paintings. In 1846, he was awarded the cross of the Legion of Honor. Major government commissions followed.

In 1847, Corot's father died and Corot and his mother went to live in the country. As a result, Corot was not present in Paris during the revolution and turmoil of 1848. His mother died in 1851.

Corot's success grew in the 1850s. Emperor Napoleon III purchased one of Corot's souvenirs for his personal collection. Corot exhibited six works at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 and was awarded a gold medal.

His style was becoming more impressionistic and the young artists of Paris took notice. Although Corot had few formal students, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot and Alfred Sisley came to study with him. Pierre Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet studied his work from afar. Edgar Degas purchased three of Corot's paintings. These Impressionist masters regarded Corot as a fatherly master.

When the Impressionists came to study with Corot, they must have seen the plein air paintings and sketches that lined the walls of his studio. These were done for the artist's own use and enjoyment and were not for sale. They would become popular and influential after Corot's death.

Although Corot is primarily known as a landscape painter, he also produced some 300 figurative works and portraits. Most of these were done later in life when his health deteriorated and travel was difficult. Many of the works depict women in traditional Italian garb. The style is direct and often use greys and pale colors.

Corot stayed in Paris through the siege of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. However, he was in the country during the fighting of the Commune. When peace returned, he resumed his traditional pattern of travel in the summer and studio work in the colder months. He died in 1874 of a digestive disorder.

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Works from early in Corot's career: "The Bridge at Nami" (above) from his first trip to Italy and "The Forest of Fontainebleu"  (below) from when he was associating with the Barbizon School.

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Above: "Hagar in the Wilderness."

Below: "Souvenir d'Optevoz."   

In addition to landscapes, Corot produced hundreds of portraits and figure works.  Above: "Agostina".  Below: "Woman Reading in the Studio". 

Above: "The Repose."  Corot believed that an artist could not produce a good landscape unless he/she had mastered rendering a nude figure.

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Artist appreciation - Camille Corot