Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, or simply Camille Corot, was a French artist of the Barbizon school of art who lived from 1796 to 1875. The Barbizon school was striving towards more realism in art during a time when Romanticism was the leading style. Corot employed the new Barbizon ideals in his landscapes and portraits.
Corot was born into a middle-class family in Paris in the end of the 18th century. He had a relatively late start into art, only attempting to paint after quitting the trade of a draper when he was 26 years old. Corot’s family was relatively prosperous and provided him with a yearly allowance. This gave Corot the money he needed to purchase materials, rent a studio, and travel.
Corot spent several years apprenticing under the landscape artist, Achille Etna Michallon. Michallon, in Corot’s own words, “whose only advice was to render with the greatest scrupulousness everything I saw before me. The lesson worked; since then, I have always treasured precision.” Corot preferred painting outside to working in the studio, and he would spend all spring, summer, and fall painting sketches outdoors that he would recreate in the winter months in his studio.
Though Neoclassicism was popular at that time and Corot had a healthy respect for the style, his own style mixed Neoclassical ideals with the precision and replication of realism. In Northern Europe, particularly, the landscape style had a more rugged and naturalistic view. In his art, Corot aspired to marry the two as well as he could, including mythological elements in his otherwise naturalistic landscapes.
Corot spent several years in Italy, painting the Roman ruins and honing his ability to paint wide panoramic scenes. He practiced plein-air painting with loose brushwork years before the Impressionists did the same. In fact, the master artist, Claude Monet, has said “There is only one master here—Corot. We are nothing compared to him, nothing.”
It took about a decade of criticism from the press before his art style became more favorable to the public, led by the acceptance and recognition of his artist peers. After the death of his parents with whom he remained very close, Corot started accepting students, including Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot. By this time, art collectors were acquiring his works, and he became quite successful. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot died in 1874 at age 78 from stomach issues.
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