Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) was a French painter and known as one of the key members of the Barbizon School. He is highly regarded for his atmospheric, poetic landscapes and female figures. Born in Paris, Corot was largely self-taught and influenced by 17th-century Dutch landscape painting. His paintings are characterized by soft, hazy light and peaceful, serene atmospheres.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot Biography

• Born July 16, 1796 in Paris, France
• He began to pursue painting in earnest in the early 1820s.
• In 1825, he traveled to Italy for the first time and created landscape paintings.
• In the 1840s, he deepened his ties with the Barbizon School painters.
• Since the 1850s, he has been highly praised at the Salon de Paris.
• Died in Paris on February 22, 1875 (aged 78)

Representative works

• "Souvenir of Mortefontaine" (1864)
• Woman with a Pearl (1868-70)
• "View near Naples" (1840s)
• The Bridge at Narni (1826)

Corot's style and achievements

Corot's style is characterized by soft light, delicate colors, and poetic depictions of landscapes. He captured natural scenery and people as they were, without idealizing them, and found tranquil beauty in them. His landscape paintings skillfully express the effects of air and light, inviting the viewer to a tranquil state of mind.

As a painter of the Barbizon School , Corot placed emphasis on outdoor painting and attempted to reproduce the beauty of nature by directly confronting it on canvas. His works had a great influence on Impressionist painters and contributed to the development of modern landscape painting.