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Lot Essay
Corot’s work in the 1840s is today recognized as some of his most distinctive, demonstrating beautiful light and a clarity of line illustrative of the artist at the naissance of his artistic maturity. The present work is an exquisite example of Corot’s innate ability to capture the very essence of light and clearly demonstrates why he was so influential for the artists of the Impressionist movement who followed in his footsteps. Paul Valéry, the great poet and critic wrote, ‘Nature was for Corot a model, but from several points of view. First, he stood for the utmost precision in respect to light…He is, besides, one of those painters who studied the lie of the land most closely. Rock, sand, folds of terrain…the continuous accidental sweep presented by natural formations, are for him objects of the first importance. Furthermore: for Corot, Nature, at her best, is both a model and an exemplar of the singular poetic value of certain harmonies between visible things. ‘Beauty’ is one of the names for this universal yet accidental quality to be seen from a point of vantage' (P. Valéry, Degas, Monet, Morisot, Princeton, 1960, p. 140).
While Corot’s later works are defined by their poetic vision and loose brushwork, the works from the 1840s and 1850s are remarkable for their naturalism which suggests more direct observation. The present work, dating from the first half of the 1840s, around the time of his last trip to Italy, demonstrates the extraordinary originality found in his work during these formative years. Though the landscape is not specifically identified (it bears an inscription on the reverse suggesting it depicts the field of Waterloo, which Robaut dismisses as the decription of a 'fantasist'), it is probably Morvan or Auvergne, and it is a masterful study in sunlight and shadow. The work presages the hallmarks of Corot’s approach to landscape painting, with his clear delineation between foreground, middle ground and background, which some scholars have suggested may have been influenced by his interest in theater sets. The darkened foreground, the patches of warm dappled light which cut through the middle ground, and the clarity of the background, rendered with an economy of painterly means and warmed by the late afternoon sun, are reflective of Corot at his best.
The light in the middle ground is breathtaking and has a naturalism which belies the careful study it must have taken for the artist to get it just right. It passes over the wheatfield and the figure of a gleaner in broad sweeps of the artist’s brush, with highlights where the light reflects off the top of the shafts carefully picked out, and is interspersed with darker areas, suggestive of passing clouds or the sun passing through unseen trees. Where it passes through the trees of the allée at left, it plays on the ground in warm patches, drawing the eye pointedly back through the composition to the sweeping vista beyond. The careful touches of light on the tree trunks where small streams of light are able to peek through the leaves and branches are a tour de force. The two figures – one of a distant gleaner in the fields, and one of a shepherd or fieldworker resting under the tree at left brought close to the picture plane – are a continuation of Corot’s experiments in the 1830s with how best to include figures in plein air landscape. With the figure nearest to us, Corot has arrived at a harmonious solution, directing his gaze out toward the viewer without the confrontational effect some of the early examples sometimes demonstrate. The distant landscape is rendered with relatively few brushstrokes, but its intermingled tones of mauve, violet, peach, sandy brown, and slate blue still capture a remarkably detailed topography.
While Corot’s later works are defined by their poetic vision and loose brushwork, the works from the 1840s and 1850s are remarkable for their naturalism which suggests more direct observation. The present work, dating from the first half of the 1840s, around the time of his last trip to Italy, demonstrates the extraordinary originality found in his work during these formative years. Though the landscape is not specifically identified (it bears an inscription on the reverse suggesting it depicts the field of Waterloo, which Robaut dismisses as the decription of a 'fantasist'), it is probably Morvan or Auvergne, and it is a masterful study in sunlight and shadow. The work presages the hallmarks of Corot’s approach to landscape painting, with his clear delineation between foreground, middle ground and background, which some scholars have suggested may have been influenced by his interest in theater sets. The darkened foreground, the patches of warm dappled light which cut through the middle ground, and the clarity of the background, rendered with an economy of painterly means and warmed by the late afternoon sun, are reflective of Corot at his best.
The light in the middle ground is breathtaking and has a naturalism which belies the careful study it must have taken for the artist to get it just right. It passes over the wheatfield and the figure of a gleaner in broad sweeps of the artist’s brush, with highlights where the light reflects off the top of the shafts carefully picked out, and is interspersed with darker areas, suggestive of passing clouds or the sun passing through unseen trees. Where it passes through the trees of the allée at left, it plays on the ground in warm patches, drawing the eye pointedly back through the composition to the sweeping vista beyond. The careful touches of light on the tree trunks where small streams of light are able to peek through the leaves and branches are a tour de force. The two figures – one of a distant gleaner in the fields, and one of a shepherd or fieldworker resting under the tree at left brought close to the picture plane – are a continuation of Corot’s experiments in the 1830s with how best to include figures in plein air landscape. With the figure nearest to us, Corot has arrived at a harmonious solution, directing his gaze out toward the viewer without the confrontational effect some of the early examples sometimes demonstrate. The distant landscape is rendered with relatively few brushstrokes, but its intermingled tones of mauve, violet, peach, sandy brown, and slate blue still capture a remarkably detailed topography.