Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot Gallery
1839
Oil on canvas
24 5/8 x 40 1/2 in.
After a long day, a solitary boatman poles his boat ashore across the water's placid surface. An array of colors—citron, lavender, turquoise, and rose—fills the sky as the sun slowly sets. Light reflects against the trees, turning the edges and foliage yellow-orange; the pool of water shimmers with reflections. The dramatically colored backlighting and the tiny, lone man create a sense of melancholy and longing that appealed to the Romantic critics of the time.
Composing from memories and from drawings made during his travels in Italy, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot painted this view for the Paris Salon of 1839. It may be a pendant to Italian Landscape, which he painted the same year. Until they were offered to the Getty Museum in 1984, scholars thought both paintings were lost. The two paintings depict ideal Italian views that contrast different times of day, emulating the works of Corot's seventeenth-century countryman Claude Lorrain.
The J. Paul Getty Trust
viewer |
|
|
| Pond in the Forest |
| Italian Landscape |
Lake and Boatman |
| Alexina Legoux |
| Campagne de Rome |
| Danses virgiliennes |
| Rochelle |
Biography
Bulletin Board
Renowned Art
(home)
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.
all artists, with thumbnails: by birth year | alphabetically
all artists: by birth year | alphabetically
artists born in the 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th century