Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875) was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching and famous art teacher in Paris. Corot was a leading figure in the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism

Quotes

Corot, c. 1867: 'Ville d'Avray', oil-painting on canvas; current location: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

1820s

I have learned from experience that it is useful to begin by drawing one's picture clearly on a virgin canvas, first having noted the desired effect on a white or gray paper, and then to do the picture section by section, as immediately finished as one can, so that when it has all been covered there is very little to retouch. I have noticed that whatever is finished at one sitting is fresher, better drawn, and profits more from many lucky accidents, while when one retouches this initial harmonious glow is lost. I think that this method is particularly good for foliage, which needs a good deal of freedom.
- Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1828, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 239 – 240

The first two things to study are form and values. For me, these are the bases of what is serious art. Color and finish put charm into one’s work.. ..it seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values (assuming that the canvas is white), and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades.. .Never lose sight of that first impression by which you were moved. Begin by determining your composition. Then the values – the relation of the forms to the values. These are the basis. Then the color, and finally the finish.
- Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1828, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 240

1840s

I am staying on in Geneva, this charming city. With each step I discover delightful motives. How pleasant it is to work here. And the light is just the way I like it, full of delicate nuances.
- Quote in a letter to his friend, the painter Paul Tavernier, Geneva, July 1842; ; as quoted in 'Corot', Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 136

My spirits.. ..now lean towards sadness and melancholy. I too am beginning to feel my age. Then, as one moves on in life sorrows multiply, and necessarily it is harder to keep cheerful.. .[I experienced] violent disappointments, that I might even call grief.
- Quote in Corot's letter to Jean-Gabriel Scheffer, 27 Dec. 1845; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 142
- this is one of the very few negative expressions by Corot; he is then 49.

1850s

I am never in a hurry to reach details. First and above all I am interested in the large masses and the general character of a picture; when these are well established, then I try for subtleties of form and color. I rework the painting constantly and freely, and without any systematic method.
- Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1850, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, pp. 240-241

Be guided by feeling alone. We are only simple mortals, subject to error; so listen to the advice of others, but follow only what you understand and can unite in your own feeling.
- Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1856, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 241

Beauty in art is truth bathed in an impression received from nature. I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for a conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me. Reality is one part of art; feeling completes it.. .Before any site and any object, abandon yourself to your first impression. If you have really been touched, you will convey to others the sincerity of your emotion.
- Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1856, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 241

You know, a landscape painter's day is delightful. You get up early, at three o'clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon.. .Ah, a first ray of sunshine!
- Corot's description of the beginning of a day in Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963

The whole landscape lies behind the transparent gauze of the fog that now rises, drawn upwards by the sun, and as it rises, reveals the silver-spangled river, the fields, the cottages, the further scene. At last one can discern all that one could only guess at before.. .The sun is up! There is a peasant at the end of the field, with his wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen.. .Everything is bursting into life, sparkling in the full light – light, which as yet is still soft and golden. The background, simple in line and harmonious in colour, melts into the infinite expanse of sky, through the bluish, misty atmosphere. The flowers raise their heads the birds flutter hither and thither.. .The little rounded willows on the bank of the stream look like birds spreading their tails. It's adorable! And one paints! And paints!
- Corot's description of a morning in Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857, as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963

1860s

I thank heaven that I was born in the same century as this remarkable artist [= Daubigny ].
- a remark c. 1865; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 272 – quote 65

He [ Delacroix ] is an eagle, I am only a lark.
- as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 272 – quote 65

It is this book ['The Imitation of Christ'] that has helped me lead my life which such serenity and has always left me with a contended heart. I has taught me that men should not puff themselves up with pride, whether they are emperors, adding this or that province tot heir empires, or painters who gain a reputation.
- Quote, recorded by Madame Aviat; as cited in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 272-73 – quote 69

You can see the pains I take to hide the attachment [of the muscles] at the clavicles and sternum, to soften the modeling of the ribs where it seems that the breasts just begin to swell; I try to go about it entirely differently from the usual way, which is above all to show what one knows. As this is not an anatomy lesson, I must bind together as seen in nature everything covering the armatures that make up and support the body, in order to put down only what I experience faced with these tissues of flesh that let one sens the blood beneath, while they reflect the light of the sky. In a word, I must bring to the painting of that breast the same artlessness I would employ in painting a bottle of milk.
- Corot explains his making of the painting to his biographer Alfred Robaut, c. 1869; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 277
- about his painting 'Landscape with Figures', also called 'La Toilette', Corot painted in 1859

1870s

I spent the winter [1859-1860, when he was painting 'Orfée et Euridice'] in the Elysian fields, where I was very happy; you must admit that if painting is a folly, it’s a sweet folly that men should not only forgive but seek out.
- Corot told Dumensnil in 1875; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 290 – note 18

If my time has come I shall have nothing to complain of. For fifty-tree years I have been painting; so I have been able to devote myself entirely to what I loved best in the world. I had never suffered poverty; I had good parents and excellent friends; I can only thank God.
- Quote from Corot's letter to his friend M. Francais in 1875, the year of his death

undated

Je rêve mon tableau, et plus tard je peindrai mon rêve.
- As cited in Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1918) by Thomas Troward, p. 207
- I dream my picture and then I paint my dream.
  - As translated in Musical Courier Vol. 57, No. 21 (18 November 1908), p. 20; in recent years a nearly identical but ultimately unsourced remark has been attributed to Vincent Van Gogh; the very earliest such attributions yet found date to the 1990s.
- Variant translations:
- I dream my picture and afterwards I paint my dream.
  - As translated in Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1918) by Thomas Troward, p. 207
- I dream my picture; by and by I paint my dream.
  - As translated in Gardener's Chronicle of America (1932)

..and, to tell the truth, I find it very difficult to like new art. It is only lately, and after having been unsympathetic for a great while, that I at last understood Eugene Delacroix, whom I now think a great man.
- as quoted by Arthur Hoebert, in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 61

Quotes about Camille Corot

19th century

At the head of the modern landscape school stands M. Corot.. .Clearly this artist has a sincere love for nature and knows how to study nature with as much intelligence as love. The qualities that shine forth in him are so emphatic – because they are rooted in his soul and his nature – that the influence of Mr. Corot can now be detected in almost all the paintings of the young landscape painters.
- Quote of C. Baudelaire, in 'The Salon of 1845', [1]; taken from Selected writings on Art and Artists, transl. P. E. Charvet – Cambridge University Press, Archive, 1981, p. 45
- Corot was a well-known art-teacher in Paris and had many pupils

..he [= Corot] knows how to be a colorist with a tone-range of little variety – and that he always achieves harmony even when using fairly crude and bright tones. His composition is always perfect. Thus in his 'Homère et les Bergers' no detail is unnecessary, nothing could be cut out; not even the two little figures walking away along the path..
- Quote of C. Baudelaire, in 'The Salon of 1845', [2]; taken from Selected writings on Art and Artists, transl. P. E. Charvet – Cambridge University Press, Archive, 1981, p. 46

One has to see a painter in his own place to get an idea of his worth. I went back there [to Corot's studio, after the official exhibition] and I appreciate in a new light the paintings that I had seen in the Museum and that had struck me as middling.. .He told me to go a bit ahead of myself, abandoning myself to whatever might come; this is how he works most of the time.. .Corot delves deeply into a subject; ideas come to him and he adds while working; it's the right approach.
- Quote by Eugène Delacroix: Entry for 14 March, 1847 in his Journal; as quoted in Selected writings on Art and Artists, transl. P. E. Charvet – Cambridge University Press, Archive, 1981, p. 150, note 44
- This visit of Delacroix was the beginning of a long and important friendship

[at Charles Daubigny's place where] ..animated conversations on the direct study of nature or the comparative merits of Haarlem paint driers and thick oil paints were often interrupted bu bursts of merriment greeting a witticism of one of the guests, who included non other than Corot, Daumier, Geoffroy-Dechaume, etc..
- Quote by Felix Braquemond, remembering Paris evenings around 1854; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 150 – note 43

My travelling companion [= Corot] has just abandoned me. He's a perfect Father Joy, this Father Corot. He is altogether a wonderful man, who mixes jokes in with his very good advice.
- Quote by Charles Daubigny, in his letter of 1852; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p.271 – note 62
- Corot's relationship with Daubigny was by far his most important friendship with another artist, during the 1860-70's

[Corot] has the devil to seldom within him. However inadequate and even unjust this expression may be, I chose it as approximately giving the reason which prevents this serious artist from dazzling and astonishing us. He does astonish – I freely admit – but slowly; he does enchant – little by little; but you have to know how to penetrate into the science of his art.. ..an infallible strictness of harmony.
- Quote by Charles Baudelaire, in his 'Salon de 1859'; as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 4 - note 15

Don't you think your Corot is a little short on temperament? I'm painting a portrait of Vallabreque; the highlight on the nose is pure vermilion.
- Paul Cezanne's quote to the painter Guilemet, ca. 1860, as quoted in Cézanne, by Ambroise Vollard, Dover publications Inc. New York, 1984, p. 28

It is only in ceasing to be entirely true that the artist will cease rendering the precise effect that has struck him, and this is what happens to Corot all those times when, too eager to idealize, he gets lost in forms and colors that have no equivalent in nature.
- Quote by Theodore Duret, c. 1861 ; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 278 note

He [Corot] was always surrounded by a crowd of fools and I didn't want to get caught up in it. I admired him from a distance.
- Quote of Renoir c. 1865, in: Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates / Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 12

Don't look to closely at Corot's figures.. ..his half-finished manner has at least the merit of producing a harmonious ensemble and a striking impression. Instead of analysing a feature one feels an impression.
- Quote of Thoré-Bürger, in: Salons de Théophile Thoré (Paris, 1868); as quoted in The Academy and French painting, Boime, p. 96; as quoted by Margaret Sehnan in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism; Sutton Publishing, 1996 - (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3), p. 46

My dear Theo.. ..Yesterday I saw the Corot exhibition. It included a painting of the 'Mount of Olives'; I'm glad he painted that. On the right, a group of olive trees, dark against the darkening blue sky; in the background hills covered with shrubs and a couple of tall trees, above them the evening star. There are 3 Corot's at the Salon [in Paris], very beautiful, the most beautiful one, painted shortly before his death, 'Women cutting wood', will probably appear as a woodcut in 'L'Illustration or Le Monde Illustré'.
- Vincent van Gogh's quote on Corot, from his Letter #034 to Theo (Paris, 31 May 1875 [3])

He [= Theodore Rousseau ] does not carry us away, as Francois Millet, toward the sorrowing epochs of rustic life, to reveal their savage grandeur or gloomy solemnity.. ..he does not transport us as Corot, into the lands of twilight, where the light, the freshness and the shadow sing an aerial melody, whose last notes reach out into infinity. No: simple, strong, all impregnated with naturalism, he respects the exact relations of the trees, the animals, man and the sky.
- Quote by J. A. Castagnary, before 1888; as cited by Charles Sprague Smith, in Barbizon days, Millet-Corot-Rousseau-Barye publisher, A. Wessels Company, New York, July 1902, p. 175

It will be hard to fill the place of the painter [ Corot ]; it will be impossible to fill the place of the man.
- Quote of Dupré, 1875; as cited by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choice of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 16
- When Corot died in 1875, Jules Dupré spoke these short words about his friend

What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found in the museum of Naples [in 1882] – in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egyptians. These priestesses in their silver-grey tunics are just like Corot's nymphs.
- Renoir's quote from his letter to Durand-Ruel (1882), as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates / Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 164

The Dupré's [paintings] are superb and there's a Daubigny.. ..that I couldn't get enough of. The same goes for a small Corot [probably the painting 'Pond at Ville-d'Avray', late 1860's [4]], a stretch of water and the edge of a wood on a summer morning about 4 o'clock. A single small pink cloud indicates that the sun will come up in a while. A stillness and calm and peace that enchants one.
- Quote of Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Theo, from The Hague, 15/16 July 1882 - original manuscript of letter no. 246 - at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. b237 a-b V/1962, [5]

He [Corot] is always the strongest, he has foreseen everything.
- Degas in 1883, as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 2
- Edgar Degas made this remark on Corot to Camille Pissarro, at the preview exhibition of the Jules Paton sale in Paris, 24 April 1883 and overheard by Corot's biographer Alfred Robaut [6].

'Adieu' he [ Daubigny ] said, 'adieu, I am going to see up there [after his death] whether friend Corot has found me any new subjects for landscape painting.' In this final thought for his art the last sigh of Daubigny was drawn.
- Quote by Albert Wolff, 1880's, in Notes upon certain masters of the XIX century, - printed not published MDCCCLXXXVI (1886), The Art Age Press, 400 N.Y. (written after the exhibition 'Cent Chefs-d'Oeuvres: the Choiche of the French Private Galleries', Petit, Paris / Baschet, New York, 1883, p. 74

I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.
- Edgar Degas, quote in 1883; as cited by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. - 4 note 5
- Degas made this remark 20 June 1887, - Corot's biographer Alfred Robaut told this story (1905. Vol. 1. P. 336)

He was a good kind man, mr. Daubigny. And mr. Corot too; he [= Corot] used to put on his blouse, light his pipe, and sit down to paint in the middle of the road like any workman. He had a merry word for all who passed and was a rare good fellow. Those were the times when Les Valléés [Auvers] were full of life.
- Quote of Ferdinand Gulpin, the old gardener of Daubigny in Auvers-sur-Oise, interviewed c. 1892 by Robert J. Wichenden, quoted in the article 'Charles-francois Daubigny' in 'The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine', Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 333

The light! [in the paintings of Délacroix ].. .There is more warm light in this interior [probably: 'Woman of Algiers'] of his than in all of Corot's landscapes..
- Paul Cezanne's quote in: 'What he told me – II. The Louvre', in Joachim Gasquet’s Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906); Thames and Hudson, London 1991, p. 196

I have lingered among the nymphs of Corot, dancing in the sacred wood of Ville-d'Avray.
- Paul Gauguin, quote of a letter, late in his life, c. 1890's - from the Marquesas-Islands; as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 185
- Corot painted in Ville-d'Avray, in 1865 en had there a residence in 1867 to work

If Theodore Rousseau was the epic poet of the Fontainebleau school, and Corot the idyllic poet, Dupre seems its tragic dramatist. Rousseau's nature is hard, rude and indifferent to man. For Corot, God is the great philanthropist, who wishes to see men happy, and lets the spring come and the warm winds blow, only that children may have pleasure in them.
- Quote by Muther, c. 1900; cited in The Barbizon Painters – being the story of the Men of thirty, Arthur Hoeber – associate of the National Academy of Design; publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York 1915, p. 172

20th century

Whatever is in common is true; but likeness is false. Trouillebert's work bears a likeness to that of Corot, but they have nothing in common.
- quote of Georges Braque from 'Cahiers d'Art', No. 10, 1935, ed. Christian Zervos, p. 96
- Braque admired Corot and frequently used Corot's young country-ladies as models for his own works, for instance in his painting 'Souvenirs de Corot', which Braque painted in 1922/23

It was Corot who taught her [ Berthe Morisot, c. 1860-1864] to bathe in air her landscapes, her figures, her still-life compositions; it was he who taught her the difficult lesson of understanding values.
- Quote about Corot and Morisot; from Berthe Morisot, Drawings, by Elizabeth Mongan; Tudor Publishing Company, 1960, p. 48; as cited by Margaret Sehnan in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism; Sutton Publishing, 1996 - (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3), p. 46
- It was fr:Joseph Guichard who initiated the contact between Corot and the two young sisters Berthe and Edma in the 1850's. The Morisot family spent some time in the summer of 1861 in Corot's place in Ville d'Avray

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