Camille Corot

born Paris 1796, died Paris 1875

After showing himself to be uninterested in business, Corot was given money by his parents to devote himself to painting. He studied in the ateliers of Jean-Victor Bertin (1767–1842) and Achille-Etna Michallon (1796–1822) and then, from 1825 through 1828, visited Italy. There he painted small studies out-of-doors, something he had already been doing in France.

He had a successful Salon career, showing in every exhibition from 1827 through the posthumous presentation of his works at the Salon of 1875. Up to about 1850 he showed composed landscapes, often with subjects drawn from the Bible or classical mythology. After midcentury, however, he developed a softer style, with diaphanous foliage and indeterminate subject matter. This, often called his poetic or lyrical style, became extremely popular.

Corot was an inveterate traveler, returning to Italy in 1834 and again in 1843, and visiting Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England. He stayed in Paris during the winters, working in his studio, but during the summer months he criss-crossed Northern France, staying with his many friends and painting out-of-doors.

He was a close friend of Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-François Millet; Antoine Chintreuil and François-Louis Français considered themselves his pupils; and he gave advice to Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro. Of an older generation and a classical bent, Corot never understood the painterly means of the Impressionists, although his insistence on transferring to canvas his impressions of nature allied him to the younger painters.

Source: Monet and the Impressionists exhibition catalogue:
Shackelford, George T M. Monet and the Impressionists.
Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2008

Learn more in the exhibition:
> Early Impressionism
> Impressionism after 1900

Works by Camille Corot in the exhibition

Morning near Beauvais  c1855–65, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection

Twilight  1845–60, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: bequest of Mrs Henry Lee Higginson