Initially a portrait and history painter, he co-founded the Barbizon School in the late 1840s, turning to evocative scenes of poor country people.
Barbizon
Born two centuries ago, his paintings anticipated and influenced those of the mainstream Impressionists. He even painted from a floating studio.
Brother of the architect Richard Morris Hunt, he painted portraits of the ‘Boston Brahmins’, then landscapes in Barbizon style.
A precocious painter who became more famous in Britain than in her native France, she liked painting powerful animals like oxen and lions.
It wasn’t until later in his career that he discovered his formula for success: putting farm animals into his landscapes.
Sadly neglected today, his landscapes are some of the finest of the century, and his depictions of trees are among the best.
A journey from early 1800s realism to Post-Impressionism, in the company of innumerable trees.
If Constable acted as a bridge, Corot was the crossroad leading to ‘modern’ art.
We should refer to European and not French Impressionism, although prior to about 1880 the hub of the movement was certainly Paris.
After japonisme, it was appropriate that Japanese painters should be trained in Paris and take the latest avant garde European styles and techniques back.
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