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Lot Essay
The present work was painted at the peak of Corot's career. The Exposition Universelle of 1855 had earned Corot a first class medal, and his reputation grew steadily, culminating in the Salon of 1859. It was during this period that Corot came to be recognized as the greatest French landscape painter by critics such as Philippe de Chennevieres who called him a "poet of the landscape". Corot was to enjoy the official patronage of the State, his painting Souvenir de Marcoussis (Musée du Louvre) being purchased by Napoleon III in 1855 from the Exposition Universelle. From 1851, Corot either served as a member of the jury or was hors concours (automatically admitted to the Salon). Because of his position, Corot was able to influence the character of the Salons that followed.
It is generally recognized that Corot's work had a profound impact on a number of younger artists who eventually became members of the Impressionist movement; Berthe Morisot was his student for a period and Camille Pissarro described himself as a pupil in the Salon brochures. Corot's paintings were in great demand from collectors and dealers alike, and his studio was often crowded with critics, collectors, dealers and students who all clamored to see him at work.
Environs de Ville d'Avray is a prime example of Corot's mature style, and was painted when the artist was at the peak of his power. Apparently painted en plein air, the brushwork is vigorous and the painting is imbued with a vivid sense of light. Corot was considered the leading landscape painter of his time, and the present work exemplified not only his innate ability to capture his local environs, but his adroit capability of poetically translating onto canvas the atmospheric effects associated with a particular time of day and season of the year. In the present painting Corot deftly captures the effect of the diffuse, pale sunlight. The figures and animals merge into the landscape and are in complete harmony with their surroundings. The critic Edmund About wrote: "No artist has more style or can better communicate his ideas in a landscape. He transforms everything he touches, he appropriates everything he paints, he never copies, and even when he works directly from nature, he invents. As they pass through his imagination, objects take on a vague and delightful form. Colors soften and melt; everything becomes fresh, young, harmonious. One can easily see that air floods his paintings, but we will never know by what secret he manages to paint air" (quoted in G. Tinterow, Corot, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. Cat., pp. 236-237).
Martin Dieterle has examined and authenticated this work.R
fig. 1 Corot sketching in a landscape
It is generally recognized that Corot's work had a profound impact on a number of younger artists who eventually became members of the Impressionist movement; Berthe Morisot was his student for a period and Camille Pissarro described himself as a pupil in the Salon brochures. Corot's paintings were in great demand from collectors and dealers alike, and his studio was often crowded with critics, collectors, dealers and students who all clamored to see him at work.
Environs de Ville d'Avray is a prime example of Corot's mature style, and was painted when the artist was at the peak of his power. Apparently painted en plein air, the brushwork is vigorous and the painting is imbued with a vivid sense of light. Corot was considered the leading landscape painter of his time, and the present work exemplified not only his innate ability to capture his local environs, but his adroit capability of poetically translating onto canvas the atmospheric effects associated with a particular time of day and season of the year. In the present painting Corot deftly captures the effect of the diffuse, pale sunlight. The figures and animals merge into the landscape and are in complete harmony with their surroundings. The critic Edmund About wrote: "No artist has more style or can better communicate his ideas in a landscape. He transforms everything he touches, he appropriates everything he paints, he never copies, and even when he works directly from nature, he invents. As they pass through his imagination, objects take on a vague and delightful form. Colors soften and melt; everything becomes fresh, young, harmonious. One can easily see that air floods his paintings, but we will never know by what secret he manages to paint air" (quoted in G. Tinterow, Corot, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. Cat., pp. 236-237).
Martin Dieterle has examined and authenticated this work.R
fig. 1 Corot sketching in a landscape