Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875). French landscape painter. Corot was the leading artistic figure of the Barbizon school of painting in France in the mid-19th century. He was a central figure in landscape painting. His work is characterized by a simultaneous connection of neoclassicism and the beginning of open-air impressionism. It was in reference to him that Claude Monet exclaimed: There is only one artist - Corot. We are nothing compared to him, nothing. Equally important is Corot’s contribution to figural painting - Degas even preferred Corot’s figures to his landscapes. The figural motifs painted by Picasso in the classic style are considered Picasso’s homage to Corot’s style. Historians loosely divide his work into different periods, but the boundaries are not specified, which was also contributed to by Corot’s custom of finishing paintings sometimes even years after beginning them.
Corot’s approach to landscape is far more traditional than it would seem. When comparing his later paintings of trees with some compositions of Claude Lorrain, such as those exhibited in the Bridgewater gallery, the similarity in technique is striking. In addition to landscapes, of which Corot painted several hundred (the most popular were those painted at a later date), Corot created a number of highly acclaimed figurative paintings. Mostly curtly cartoons, these are paintings created in the studio with the intention of keeping them as private property rather than selling them. Yet many of them have a great composition, and the colours are in any case remarkable for their strength and purity.