Saturday, February 11, 2017

Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796-1875)

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Bridge at Narni
1825
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Louvre

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Roman Forum from Farnese Gardens
1826
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Louvre

"Indeed I was haunted all winter by an irresistible prevision of what Rome must be in declared spring. Certain charming places seemed to murmur: Ah, this is nothing! Come back at the right weeks and see the sky above us almost black with its excess of blue, and the new grass already deep, but still vivid, and the white roses tumble in odorous spray and the warm radiant air distill gold for the smelting-pot that the genius loci then dips his brush into before making play with it, in his inimitable way, for the general effect of complexion."

 Henry James, from Italian Hours (1909)

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Colosseum from Farnese Gardens
1826
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Louvre

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Rocks
1828
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Cathedral at Chartres
1830
oil on canvas
Louvre

Jean-Baptiste Corot
The Reader (wreathed with ivy)
1845
oil on canvas
Louvre

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Landscape with Boy in White Shirt
ca. 1855-60
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Bord de la Seine
ca. 1845
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Trees in a Marsh
ca. 1855-60
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"The Yonne, bending gracefully, link after link, through a never-ending rustle of poplar trees, beneath lowly vine-clad hills, with relics of delicate woodland here and there, sometimes close at hand, sometimes leaving an interval of broad meadow, has all the lightsome characteristics of French river-side scenery on a smaller scale than usual, and might pass for the child's fancy of a river, like the rivers of the old miniature-painters, blue, and full to a fair green margin."

 Walter Pater, from Denys L'Auxerrois (1887)

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Wooded landscape with cows in a clearing
ca. 1855
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Evening
ca. 1855-60
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Solitude - Recollection of Vigen, Limousin
1866
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Church of Marissel near Beauvais
1866
oil on canvas
Louvre

Jean-Baptiste Corot
Bridge at Mantes
ca. 1868-70
oil on canvas
Louvre

"[Roger] Fry compares Corot's canvas to the way music is created. He emphasizes how the simple appearances Corot perceived produced "mysteriously perfect chords of color in which every note gets a new meaning and resonance." Characteristic of Corot is the plastic unity of space, filled entirely with air and light. Harmony is achieved thanks to the subtle, minor and unconscious adjustments to common external objects, so inconspicuous that some observers do not even notice them. . . . The resemblance to "reality" is totally irrelevant for the mood the painting arouses  a mood "as detached from any actual experience as that of the purest music." "In short," according to Fry, "Corot creates here an entirely spiritual reality."

– Antoon Van den Braembussche, from Thinking Art (Springer, 2009)