As one of the highest profile representatives of the famous Barbizon School, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot had an affinity for landscape painting unlike few other artists of his time. Fame and wealth followed the French master, with his opulent landscapes enthralling not only Europe but also the USA and making him one of the most sought-after artists in the world to this day.
(...) Continue readingJean Baptiste Camille Corot – Landscape painting instead of the cloth trade
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was born on 16 July 1796 in Paris. His parents belonged to the wealthy bourgeoisie and ran a prosperous fashion business together: his Swiss mother worked successfully as a modiste, and the father looked after the business side. Corot was intended to follow in his father’s footsteps and thus completed an apprenticeship as a cloth merchant. This brought him no joy, however, and he abandoned the trade at the age of 25 to concentrate completely on an artistic career. Jean-Victor Bertin, a leading representative of classical landscape painting, was Corot’s teacher, and he received further training from Achille-Etna Michallon. Both Bertin and Michallon were followers of the neo-classical landscape painter Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and they passed that painting method on to the eager learner, Jean Baptists Camille Corot. From the beginning, the young painter greatly valued painting outside to capture what he saw instead of composing his landscapes in the studio.
Camille Corot loved painting more than people
In the autumn of 1825, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot travelled to Rome and stayed for three years in the Campagna Romana to paint. It was here, in the picturesque-idyllic area around Rome, as on his trips to Naples, Ischia and Venice, that he discovered probably the most significant and formative influences for his whole career. Touched, he told a friend that he wanted to do nothing more in his life than paint landscapes – marriage or similar disruptive relationships did not come into question. And Corot is said to have stuck to this: back in Paris, he opened his own studio in the Rue Voltaire. In his early years, he undertook many walking tours through Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, but later he became more settled and preferred to spend his days outdoors in fine weather to pursue his passion for painting.
Camille Corot was celebrated, loved and forged
Over the years, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot’s style visibly developed from a naturalistic, austere interpretation to romanticised, atmospheric painting; alongside Charles-François Daubigny, Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, he was one of the most outstanding representatives of the Barbizon School. Already during his lifetime, Camille Corot was one of the most copied and forged masters; he himself is said to have commented on this circumstance with the sarcastic remark that of the 1500 works he had painted, 3000 were in America. Even greats such as Fernand Léger admitted to having earnt money with fake Corots for a time. The great success brought Corot awards and honours as well as a considerable fortune which he generously donated to charities, particularly in the latter years. He sponsored young painters, supported the poor in Paris, provided accommodation for the blind and penniless Honoré Daumier, and cared for the family of his late colleague Jean-François Millet.
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot died on 22 February 1875 in his birth town of Paris. As he had planned as a young man, he was never married and did not have any children. The French art historian Germain Bazin remarked that an artist of Camille Corot’s stature simply did not need to live on in the flesh – and indeed, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot’s artistic legacy has ensured that the artist remains unforgotten to this day.
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
