Koro, Camille

Koro received his first painting lessons from the landscape painter Mishalon , and after his death studied with Bertin .

Researchers find a definite connection between the work of Corot and his predecessors - Canaletto , Guardi and Lorren . But overall, his art is very original. In particular, it differs from the parallel development of the art of the Barbizonians , whose landscapes dedicated to the life of the French countryside were too static.

Of great importance for the work of Corot was a trip to Italy in 1825-1828. Later he returned there two more times: in 1834 and in 1843. Corot traveled to Belgium and the Netherlands , England , regularly visited Switzerland . He traveled a lot in France : Normandy , Burgundy , Provence , Ile de France .

Working in the open air, Koro created entire albums of sketches. In winter, he painted in the studio paintings on mythological and religious themes, trying to achieve success in the Salon, he sent his first paintings there already in 1827 . Such, for example, “ Hagar in the desert” (1835), “ Homer and the shepherds” (1845). However, Koro achieved the greatest fame in the portrait and, especially, in the landscape.

Portraits

Portraits of Koro most often depict tender and sad girls, sometimes against the backdrop of the landscape. For example, “Portrait of Claire Sennegon” (1837, Louvre Museum ), where a white dress contrasts with the gray sky, or “Toilet” (1859, Private collection), where a naked girl is depicted on the edge of a forest.

Sometimes the portraits of Corot have something in common with the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael , the hands of the portrayed are folded in the same way as in the paintings of the Renaissance masters (“Woman with a Pearl” (1868/1870, Louvre)).

Some of his best portraits are “A Woman in a Pink Skirt” (circa 1865, the Louvre Museum), “Interrupted Reading” (1870, the Art Institute , Chicago ), and “Gypsy with a Mandolin” (circa 1874, Sao Paulo , Museum of Art.), “The Lady in Blue” (1874, Louvre Museum).

Mood landscapes

Most of Koro's paintings are landscapes. At the beginning of his career in Italy, he created a large number of Mishallon studies, filled with air and light, for example, “View of the Forum from the Farnese Gardens” (1826, the Louvre), “Morning in Venice ” (1834, the Pushkin Museum named after A. Pushkin ).

Koro cannot be recognized as a colorist. In his paintings there are only a few basic tones, but the wide use of valers allows you to skillfully convey the mood, often in the autumn, sad. Among various autumnal halftones and shades, only at one point in the picture can a bright spot sometimes flicker, for example, fisherman's hats, as in the Hermitage paintings “A Peasant Grazing a Cow at the Edge of the Forest” (1865/1870), “Morning” and “Evening” (end 1850s / early 1860s).

Corot shared etudes, written from nature and fantasy, inspired by the memories of some remarkable place. The pinnacle of Corot's work is The Recollection of Mortfontaine (1864, Louvre Museum).

Many of Corot's landscapes glorified those corners of France where he painted his best works - “Bridge in Mantes” (1868/1870, Louvre Museum), “Tower in Douai” (1871, Louvre Museum), “Beach in Etretat ” (1872, Museum of the Arts of Saintes -Louisa ).

He influenced the Impressionists, some of whom he knew personally. “What I like most about Corot is the way he can convey everything to you with one knot of wood,” said Auguste Renoir . Corot's work was a necessary stage in the development of French painting on the way from the Barbizonians to the Impressionists.

In total, Koro wrote more than 3000 paintings, in addition to this, he created dozens of etchings. As in the case of Aivazovsky , such a number of works gave rise to fakes, imitations and difficulties in attribution, which later led to a drop in demand for Koro's work. There are cases when, having met the fake “under Koro” that he liked, the artist signed it with his name in recognition of the forger's skill.

From one of the New York art exhibitions, Koro's painting “Portrait of a Girl” disappeared. The police searched for a picture for a long time but did not find it. Later it turned out that all the time the picture hung at home in the toilet of the doorman of the Mark Hotel ^[1] Franklin Pyntes. ^{[2] The} doorman found a portrait in the bushes near his place of work, brought home and hung on the wall opposite the toilet. A few weeks later, accidentally seeing a picture of the painting on TV, the doorman found out that it costs more than a million dollars, the police are looking for her, and took the painting to the police station. ^[3] Thomas Doyle was convicted of stealing the painting. ^[one]

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  Rome. Forum and gardens of Farnese. 1826. Orsay Museum , Paris

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  View from the Farnese gardens. 1826. Phillips Collection, Washington.

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  The bridge in Narni . 1826. Louvre Museum , Paris

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  Morning in Venice . 1834. Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin , Moscow

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  Reading girl in red. 1845-1850. Buerle Collection, Zurich

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  Fontainebleau Forest. 1846. Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

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  Morning. Dance of the Nymphs. 1850. Orsay Museum

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  Village concert. 1857. Conde Museum

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  Orpheus and Eurydice. 1861. Museum of Fine Arts (Houston)

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  Letter. OK. 1865. Metropolitan Museum

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  Agostina. 1866. National Gallery of Art , Washington

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  Reading woman. 1869-1870. Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York

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  Bathing Diana. 1869-1870. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum , Madrid

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  Portrait of Mariette Gambe ("Dreams of Mariette") . 1869-1870. Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin , Moscow

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  Stormy weather. Clouds Pas de Calais . circa 1870. Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin , Moscow

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  Remembering Cobron. 1872. Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)

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  Bathing Diana. 1873.-1874 Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin , Moscow

• Alpatov M.V. Camille Corot. Visual Arts, 1984.

• The life and work of Camille Corot on the site of the Painting of the Impressionists
• Samin D.K. Camille Corot