Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot Gallery
Pond in the Forest
L’étang dans la forêt
1865–70
Oil on canvas
24 x 20 1/16 inches
(61 x 51 cm)
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
 
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot studied with two classical landscape painters: in 1822 with Achille-Etna Michallon and later with Jean-Victor Bertin. On Bertin’s advice Corot went to Italy, where for he worked en plein air for three years, 1825–1828, creating his first famous landscapes.

Corot made two more trips to Italy, in 1834 and 1843, and traveled around Europe, going to Switzerland in 1834, 1842, and late 1850, The Netherlands in 1854, and England in 1862. He began exhibiting at the Salon in 1827 and continued to do so regularly until his death. In the 1830s and 1840s he spent the summer months in the small village of Barbizon near Paris and worked in the forests of Fontainebleau.

Here Corot befriended the artists of the Barbizon school, especially Théodore Rousseau. In the mid-1840s critics began regarding Corot and Rousseau as the leaders of French landscape painting. The six landscapes Corot exhibited in 1855 at the world’s fair in Paris were an enormous success. In the last 20 years of his life Corot preferred working at his family’s property in Ville d’Avray, north of Paris.

Many artists, who later became known as the Impressionists, came to Corot for advice during these years, particularly Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot. However, Corot did not participate and did not allow his students to take part in the first exhibit of the Impressionists in 1874. Nevertheless, the Impressionist revered Corot and justly saw him as one the greatest landscape painters of the 19th century.

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Pond in the Forest
Italian Landscape
Lake and Boatman
Alexina Legoux
Campagne de Rome
Danses virgiliennes
Rochelle

Biography


Bulletin Board


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Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875)
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was a French landscape painter. He was a regular contributor to the Salon during his lifetime, and in 1846 was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour. Of the painters classed in the Barbizon school Corot will live the longest, and will continue to occupy the highest position.
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