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131-513: He was born Paul-Marie-Joseph Durand-Ruel in Paris, son of Jean Marie Fortuné Durand and Marie Ferdinande Ruel. His parents, who opened an art shop in 1839, used the Durand-Ruel name for the family business. In 1851, Paul enrolled at the military school Ecole Militaire de Saint-Cyr but was forced to leave shortly after for health reasons. Paul Durand-Ruel married Jeanne Marie Eva Lafon in 1862;

262-453: A history painter , a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classical Western art. In his early thirties he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life. Degas was born in Paris , France , into a moderately wealthy family. He

393-408: A "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art

524-566: A business model where artists would retain the proceeds from their own sales, and the success of an exhibition relied upon the market demand for the art, rather than the reviews of the state. The emergence of the dealer-artists relationship and independent exhibitions beginning in the 1870s broke down the monopoly power of the Salon, and began a new era of art markets. Prior to his support of the Impressionists, Durand-Ruel began his career in

655-526: A campaign to raise the value of 'the beautiful School of 1830'. This group of artists were known for their work in Romanticism and landscape painting , and included Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot , Théodore Rousseau , Jean-François Millet , Eugène Delacroix , and Gustave Courbet . Durand-Ruel played an active role in the collection of these painters' art in the 1860s and 70s. By 1874, having purchased 432 works by Delacroix, Corot, and Rousseau, Durand-Ruel

786-436: A cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized

917-455: A conundrum to art historians in search of a literary source— Thérèse Raquin has been suggested —but it may be a depiction of prostitution . As his subject matter changed, so, too, did Degas's technique. The dark palette that bore the influence of Dutch painting gave way to the use of vivid colors and bold brushstrokes. Paintings such as Place de la Concorde read as "snapshots," freezing moments of time to portray them accurately, imparting

1048-644: A copyist in the Louvre Museum , but his father expected him to go to law school . Degas duly enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in November 1853 but applied little effort to his studies. In 1855, he met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres , whom he revered and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become

1179-408: A day center for children on rue Vandrezanne in Paris. In later life, he remained a humble and modest man, apolitical and happy with his luck in life, and held close the belief that "men should not puff themselves up with pride, whether they are emperors adding this or that province to their empires or painter who gain a reputation." Despite great success and appreciation among artists, collectors, and

1310-770: A detail that had caught his attention: a secondary figure, or a head which he treated as a portrait. Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting The Bellelli Family —an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon , although it remained unfinished until 1867. He also began work on several history paintings : Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859–60; Sémiramis Building Babylon in 1860; and Young Spartans Exercising around 1860. In 1861, Degas visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Ménil-Hubert-en-Exmes , and made

1441-682: A good artist." In April of that year Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts . He studied drawing there with Louis Lamothe , under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres. In July 1856, Degas traveled to Italy , where he would remain for the next three years. In 1858, while staying with his aunt's family in Naples , he made the first studies for his early masterpiece The Bellelli Family . He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo , Raphael , Titian , and other Renaissance artists, but—contrary to conventional practice—he usually selected from an altarpiece

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1572-640: A hint of anti-Semitism. In 1881, he exhibited two pastels, Criminal Physiognomies , that depicted juvenile gang members recently convicted of murder in the "Abadie Affair". Degas had attended their trial with sketchbook in hand, and his numerous drawings of the defendants reveal his interest in the atavistic features thought by some 19th-century scientists to be evidence of innate criminality. In his paintings of dancers and laundresses, he reveals their occupations not only by their dress and activities but also by their body type: his ballerinas exhibit an athletic physicality, while his laundresses are heavy and solid. By

1703-599: A huge production of Corot forgeries between 1870 and 1939. René Huyghe famously quipped that "Corot painted three thousand canvases, ten thousand of which have been sold in America". Although this is a humorous exaggeration, thousands of forgeries have been amassed, with the Jousseaume collection alone containing 2,414 such works. Adding to the problem was Corot's lax attitude which encouraged copying and forgery. He allowed his students to copy his works and to even borrow

1834-487: A hundred things and not finish one of them", and was in any case notoriously reluctant to consider a painting complete. His interest in portraiture led Degas to study carefully the ways in which a person's social stature or form of employment may be revealed by their physiognomy , posture, dress, and other attributes. In his 1879 Portraits, At the Stock Exchange , he portrayed a group of Jewish businessmen with

1965-451: A job. From 1870 Degas increasingly painted ballet subjects, partly because they sold well and provided him with needed income after his brother's debts had left the family bankrupt. Degas began to paint café life as well, in works such as L'Absinthe and Singer with a Glove . His paintings often hinted at narrative content in a way that was highly ambiguous; for example, Interior (which has also been called The Rape ) has presented

2096-477: A less idealized treatment of the figure is already apparent. During his early career, Degas also painted portraits of individuals and groups; an example of the latter is The Bellelli Family ( c.  1858–67 ), an ambitious and psychologically poignant portrayal of his aunt, her husband, and their children. In this painting, as in Young Spartans Exercising and many later works, Degas

2227-531: A little-known group of 73 plaster casts, more or less closely resembling Degas's original wax sculptures, was presented as having been discovered among the materials bought by the Airaindor Foundry (later known as Airaindor-Valsuani) from Hébrard's descendants. Bronzes cast from these plasters were issued between 2004 and 2016 by Airaindor-Valsuani in editions inconsistently marked and thus of unknown size. There has been substantial controversy concerning

2358-703: A massive exhibition of Impressionist paintings originating mostly from his private collection. The Grafton Galleries contained 315 paintings from Manet, Boudin, Pissarro, Renoir, and Monet. While the show only provided 13 direct sales for Durand-Ruel, it sparked an interest among international art collectors in Impressionism . His business dealings with American collectors began during the 1860s, but were initially kept to short-term ventures, such as exhibitions in Boston and Philadelphia, as well as client visits in Paris. Durand-Ruel opened his first permanent gallery in

2489-466: A model upon learning she was Protestant . Although Degas painted a number of Jewish subjects from 1865 to 1870, his 1879 painting Portraits at the Stock Exchange may be a watershed in his political opinions. The painting is a portrait of the Jewish banker Ernest May—who may have commissioned the work and was its first owner—and is widely regarded as anti-Semitic by modern experts. The facial features of

2620-520: A modern context. He began to paint women at work, milliners and laundresses . His milliner series is interpreted as artistic self-reflection. Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet La Source , exhibited in the Salon of 1868, was his first major work to introduce a subject with which he would become especially identified, dancers. In many subsequent paintings, dancers were shown backstage or in rehearsal, emphasizing their status as professionals doing

2751-455: A more impressionistic touch, with brushstrokes becoming more apparent alongside an increased focus on tone. In part, this evolution in expression can be seen as marking the transition from the plein-air paintings of his youth, shot through with warm natural light, to the studio-created landscapes of his late maturity, enveloped in uniform tones of silver. In his final 10 years he became the "Père (Father) Corot" of Parisian artistic circles, where he

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2882-485: A sense of movement. The lack of color in the 1874 Ballet Rehearsal on Stage and the 1876 The Ballet Instructor can be said to link with his interest in the new technique of photography. The changes to his palette, brushwork, and sense of composition all evidence the influence that both the Impressionist movement and modern photography, with its spontaneous images and off-kilter angles, had on his work. Blurring

3013-498: A single nomination for a prize, not even for the drawing classes." Unlike many masters who demonstrated early talent and inclinations toward art, before 1815 Corot showed no such interest. During those years he lived with the Sennegon family, whose patriarch was a friend of Corot's father and who spent much time with young Corot on nature walks. It was in this region that Corot made his first paintings after nature. At nineteen, Corot

3144-401: A single time of day, the morning, and a single color, pale grey." Corot responded: What there is to see in painting, or rather what I am looking for, is the form, the whole, the value of the tones...That is why for me the color comes after, because I love more than anything else the overall effect, the harmony of the tones, while color gives you a kind of shock that I don't like. Perhaps it is

3275-485: A taking a similar approach—quick, spontaneous painting done in the out-of-doors; however, where the Impressionists used rapidly applied, un-mixed colors to capture light and mood, Corot usually mixed and blended his colors to get his dreamy effects. When out of the studio, Corot traveled throughout France, mirroring his Italian methods, and concentrated on rustic landscapes. He returned to the Normandy coast and to Rouen,

3406-476: Is a pivotal figure in landscape painting. His work simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism . Of him Claude Monet exclaimed in 1897, "There is only one master here—Corot. We are nothing compared to him, nothing." His contributions to figure painting are hardly less important; Degas preferred his figures to his landscapes , and

3537-569: Is a street named Rue Corot on Île des Sœurs , Quebec , named for the artist. In Arthur Conan Doyle's 1890 novel The Sign of the Four Thaddeus Sholto has an unknown work of Corot on display. [REDACTED] Category Edgar Degas Edgar Degas ( UK : / ˈ d eɪ ɡ ɑː / , US : / d eɪ ˈ ɡ ɑː , d ə ˈ ɡ ɑː / ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas , French: [ilɛːʁ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɛdɡaʁ də ɡa] ; 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917)

3668-440: Is a true artist. One has to see a painter in his own place to get an idea of his worth...Corot delves deeply into a subject: ideas come to him and he adds while working; it's the right approach." Upon Delacroix's recommendation, the painter Constant Dutilleux bought a Corot painting and began a long and rewarding relationship with the artist, bringing him friendship and patrons. Corot's public treatment dramatically improved after

3799-457: Is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory". Recognized as an important artist in his lifetime, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of Impressionism". Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with

3930-523: Is instead a rustic bacchante. In perhaps his last figure painting, Lady in Blue (1874), Corot achieves an effect reminiscent of Degas , soft yet expressive. In all cases of his figure painting, the color is restrained and is remarkable for its strength and purity. Corot also executed many etchings and pencil sketches. Some of the sketches used a system of visual symbols—circles representing areas of light and squares representing shadow. He also experimented with

4061-422: Is it that there are ten of you around me, and not one of you thinks to relight my pipe." Dealers snapped up his works and his prices were often above 4,000 francs per painting. With his success secured, Corot gave generously of his money and time. He became an elder of the artists' community and would use his influence to gain commissions for other artists. In 1871 he gave £2000 for the poor of Paris, under siege by

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4192-519: Is often identified as an Impressionist , an understandable but insufficient description. Impressionism originated in the 1860s and 1870s and grew, in part, from the realism of painters such as Courbet and Corot . The Impressionists painted the realities of the world around them using bright, "dazzling" colors, concentrating primarily on the effects of light, and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy. They wanted to express their visual experience in that exact moment. Technically, Degas differs from

4323-473: Is to say, in marriage...but my independent nature and my great need for serious study make me take the matter lightly." During the six-year period following his first Italian visit and his second, Corot focused on preparing large landscapes for presentation at the Salon . Several of his salon paintings were adaptations of his Italian oil sketches reworked in the studio by adding imagined, formal elements consistent with Neoclassical principles. An example of this

4454-492: Is usually believed. Compared to the Impressionists who came later, Corot's palette is restrained, dominated with browns and blacks ("forbidden colors" among the Impressionists), along with dark and silvery green. Though appearing at times to be rapid and spontaneous, usually his strokes were controlled and careful, and his compositions well-thought out and generally rendered as simply and concisely as possible, heightening

4585-524: The Lycée Louis-le-Grand . His mother died when he was thirteen, and the main influences on him for the remainder of his youth were his father and several unmarried uncles. Degas began to paint early in life. By the time he graduated from the Lycée with a baccalauréat in literature in 1853, at age 18, he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio. Upon graduating, he registered as

4716-615: The cliché verre process—a hybrid of photography and engraving. Starting in the 1830s, Corot also painted decorative panels and walls in the homes of friends, aided by his students. Corot summed up his approach to art around 1860: "I interpret with my art as much as with my eye." The works of Corot are housed in museums in France and the Netherlands, Britain, North America and Russia. The strong market for Corot's works and his relatively easy-to-imitate late painting style resulted in

4847-639: The French government decorated him with the cross of the Légion d'honneur and in 1848 he was awarded a second-class medal at the Salon, but he received little state patronage as a result. His only commissioned work was a religious painting for a baptismal chapel painted in 1847, in the manner of the Renaissance masters. Though the establishment kept holding back, other painters acknowledged Corot's growing stature. In 1847, Delacroix noted in his journal, "Corot

4978-537: The French public followed suit." During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Durand-Ruel left Paris and escaped to London, where he met up with a number of exiled French artists including Charles-François Daubigny , Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro . In December 1870, he opened the first of ten Annual Exhibitions of the Society of French Artists at his new London gallery at 168 New Bond Street, under

5109-625: The Impressionist movement. Degas's style reflects his deep respect for the old masters (he was an enthusiastic copyist well into middle age) and his great admiration for Ingres and Delacroix. He was also a collector of Japanese prints , whose compositional principles influenced his work, as did the vigorous realism of popular illustrators such as Daumier and Gavarni . Although famous for horses and dancers, Degas began with conventional historical paintings such as The Daughter of Jephthah ( c.  1859–61 ) and Young Spartans Exercising ( c.  1860–62 ), in which his gradual progress toward

5240-421: The Impressionists in that he continually belittled their practice of painting en plein air . You know what I think of people who work out in the open. If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don't mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning. "He was often as anti-impressionist as

5371-448: The Impressionists, however, and rejected the rigid rules and judgments of the Salon. Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans , or Little Dancer of Fourteen Years , which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it

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5502-515: The Prussians. (see: Franco-Prussian War ) During the actual Paris Commune , he was at Arras with Alfred Robaut. In 1872 he bought a house in Auvers as a gift for Honoré Daumier , who by then was blind, without resources, and homeless. In 1875, he donated 10,000 francs to the widow of Millet in support of her children. His charity was near proverbial. He also financially supported the upkeep of

5633-654: The Revolution of 1848, when he was admitted as a member of the Salon jury. He was promoted to an officer of the Salon in 1867. Having forsaken any long-term relationships with women, Corot remained very close to his parents even in his fifties. A contemporary said of him, "Corot is a man of principle, unconsciously Christian; he surrenders all his freedom to his mother...he has to beg her repeatedly to get permission to go out...for dinner every other Friday." Apart from his frequent travels, Corot remained closely tethered to his family until his parents died, then at last he gained

5764-592: The Roman countryside. In 1835, Corot created a sensation at the Salon with his biblical painting Agar dans le desert (Hagar in the Wilderness), which depicted Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden, and the child Ishmael, dying of thirst in the desert until saved by an angel. The background was likely derived from an Italian study. This time, Corot's unanticipated bold, fresh statement of the Neoclassical ideal succeeded with

5895-876: The United States in 1887. The New York City based enterprise is seen as a cornerstone to Durand-Ruel's success with Impressionism. Durand-Ruel & Sons was the official name of his American venture, which included his sons Joseph, Charles, and Georges by 1893. With the help of his sons, Durand-Ruel was able to have a permanent presence in the United States. In addition to the permanent gallery in New York City, he organized exhibitions in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, among other locations. The family-run American enterprise continued operating after Paul Durand-Ruel's death until 1950. Durand-Ruel's business in Germany came soon after his success in

6026-660: The United States. Germany hosted its first exhibition of the Impressionists in 1883, with the help of Durand-Ruel. With his main focus in the United States in the 1880s, Paul Durand-Ruel's presence in Germany came through the help of the German art critique Emil Heilbut , who purchased and sold many paintings between 1880 and 1896. His connection with German painter Max Liebermann led to exhibitions in Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg of both French Impressionism and later work by Liebermann himself. From 1899, Durand-Ruel's business in Germany

6157-408: The age of 89, he declared: " At last the Impressionist masters triumphed just as the generation of 1830 had. My madness had been wisdom. To think that, had I passed away at sixty, I would have died debt-ridden and bankrupt, surrounded by a wealth of underrated treasures…" Durand-Ruel died on 5 February 1922 in Paris. While Paul Durand-Ruel has the legacy of bringing art to the free market, he viewed

6288-400: The anti-Semitic "Anti-Dreyfusards" until his death. During his life, public reception of Degas's work ranged from admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a number of paintings accepted in the Salon between 1865 and 1870. These works received praise from Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary . He soon joined forces with

6419-488: The artistic and fashionable potential of Impressionism as early as 1870, and his first major exhibition of their work took place at his London gallery in 1872. Eventually Durand-Ruel had exhibitions of Impressionism and other works (including the expatriate American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler who lived in London), at his Paris and London galleries. During the final three decades of the 19th century, Durand-Ruel became

6550-414: The authenticity of these plasters as well as the circumstances and date of their creation as proposed by their promoters. While several museum and academic professionals accept them as presented, most of the recognized Degas scholars have declined to comment. Degas, who believed that "the artist must live alone, and his private life must remain unknown", lived an outwardly uneventful life. In company he

6681-609: The banker in profile have been directly compared to those in the anti-Semitic cartoons rampant in Paris at the time, while those of the background characters have drawn comparisons to Degas' earlier work Criminal Physiognomies . The Dreyfus Affair , which divided opinion in Paris from the 1890s to the early 1900s, intensified his anti-Semitism. By the mid-1890s, he had broken off relations with all of his Jewish friends, publicly disavowed his previous friendships with Jewish artists, and refused to use models who he believed might be Jewish. He remained an outspoken anti-Semite and member of

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6812-526: The best known Neoclassic landscape painters in France, who had Corot draw copies of lithographs of botanical subjects to learn precise organic forms. Though holding Neoclassicists in the highest regard, Corot did not limit his training to their tradition of allegory set in imagined nature. His notebooks reveal precise renderings of tree trunks, rocks, and plants which show the influence of Northern realism. Throughout his career, Corot demonstrated an inclination to apply both traditions in his work, sometimes combining

6943-481: The business, specializing particularly in works by the Impressionists. Joseph had a son he named Charles Durand-Ruel, who eventually took over the running of the Paris branch of the family firm. Until the turn of the 20th century, the French ' Salon System ' was the primary institution for exposing art to the public sphere. While the French Salon was an effective tool for funding and marketing new artists, it

7074-456: The cafes, critiquing each other and gossiping. Corot learned little from the Renaissance masters (though later he cited Leonardo da Vinci as his favorite painter) and spent most of his time around Rome and in the Italian countryside. The Farnese Gardens with its splendid views of the ancient ruins was a frequent destination, and he painted it at three different times of the day. The training

7205-482: The city he lived in as a youth. Corot also did some portraits of friends and relatives, and received his first commissions. His sensitive portrait of his niece, Laure Sennegon, dressed in powder blue, was one of his most successful and was later donated to the Louvre . He typically painted two copies of each family portrait, one for the subject and one for the family, and often made copies of his landscapes as well. In

7336-704: The classical figures of Picasso pay overt homage to Corot's influence. Historians have divided his work into periods, but the points of division are often vague, as he often completed a picture years after he began it. In his early period, he painted traditionally and "tight"—with minute exactness, clear outlines, thin brushwork, and with absolute definition of objects throughout, with a monochromatic underpainting or ébauche . After he reached his 50th year, his methods changed to focus on breadth of tone and an approach to poetic power conveyed with thicker application of paint; and about 20 years later, from about 1865 onwards, his manner of painting became more lyrical, affected with

7467-452: The copies from the originals backfired when forgers used the publications as guides to expand and refine their bogus paintings. Two of Corot's works are featured and play an important role in the plot of the 2008 French film L'Heure d'été (English title Summer Hour ). The film was produced by the Musée d'Orsay , and the two works were lent by the museum for the making of the film. There

7598-457: The couple's first child was born shortly thereafter. In 1865, Paul took over the family business which represented artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and the members of the Barbizon school of French landscape painting. In 1867, he moved his gallery from 1 rue de la Paix , Paris, to 16 rue Laffitte , with a branch at 111 rue Le Peletier. During the 1860s and early 1870s, Durand-Ruel

7729-488: The critics by demonstrating "the harmony between the setting and the passion or suffering that the painter chooses to depict in it." He followed that up with other biblical and mythological subjects, but those paintings did not succeed as well, as the Salon critics found him wanting in comparisons with Poussin. In 1837, he painted his earliest surviving nude, The Nymph of the Seine . Later, he advised his students "The study of

7860-617: The critics who reviewed the shows", according to art historian Carol Armstrong ; as Degas himself explained, "no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing." Nonetheless, he is described more accurately as an Impressionist than as a member of any other movement. His scenes of Parisian life, his off-center compositions, his experiments with color and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist artists—most notably Mary Cassatt and Manet—all relate him intimately to

7991-538: The decade beginning in 1874. Disenchanted by now with the Salon, he instead joined a group of young artists who were organizing an independent exhibiting society. The group soon became known as the Impressionists. Between 1874 and 1886, they mounted eight art shows, known as the Impressionist Exhibitions. Degas took a leading role in organizing the exhibitions, and showed his work in all but one of them, despite his persistent conflicts with others in

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8122-532: The distinction between portraiture and genre pieces, he painted his bassoonist friend, Désiré Dihau , in The Orchestra of the Opera (c. 1870) as one of fourteen musicians in an orchestra pit, viewed as though by a member of the audience. Above the musicians can be seen only the legs and tutus of the dancers onstage, their figures cropped by the edge of the painting. Art historian Charles Stuckey has compared

8253-626: The earliest of his many studies of horses. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages , which attracted little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon during the next five years, he submitted no more history paintings, and his Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (Salon of 1866) signaled his growing commitment to contemporary subject matter. The change in his art

8384-426: The effect of suppressing his painting palette even more in sympathy with the monochromic tones of photographs. This had the result of making his paintings even less dramatic but somewhat more poetic, a result which caused some critics to cite a monotony in his later work. Théophile Thoré wrote that Corot "has only a single octave, extremely limited and in a minor key; a musician would say. He knows scarcely more than

8515-531: The end of 1907, and is believed to have continued making sculptures as late as 1910, he apparently ceased working in 1912, when the impending demolition of his longtime residence on the rue Victor Massé forced him to move to quarters on the Boulevard de Clichy . He never married, and spent the last years of his life, nearly blind, restlessly wandering the streets of Paris before dying in September 1917. Degas

8646-440: The establishment came slowly, by 1845 Baudelaire led a charge pronouncing Corot the leader in the "modern school of landscape painting". While some critics found Corot's colors "pale" and his work having "naive awkwardness", Baudelaire astutely responded, "M. Corot is more a harmonist than a colorist, and his compositions, which are always entirely free of pedantry, are seductive just because of their simplicity of color." In 1846,

8777-477: The excess of this principal that makes people say I have leaden tones. In his aversion to shocking color, Corot sharply diverged from the up-and-coming Impressionists, who embraced experimentation with vivid hues. In addition to his landscapes (so popular was the late style that there exist numerous forgeries), Corot produced a number of prized figure pictures. While the subjects were sometimes placed in pastoral settings, these were mostly studio pieces, drawn from

8908-614: The figure, the pictures created in this late period of his life bear little superficial resemblance to his early paintings. In point of fact, these paintings—created late in his life and after the heyday of the Impressionist movement—most vividly use the coloristic techniques of Impressionism. For all the stylistic evolution, certain features of Degas's work remained the same throughout his life. He always painted indoors, preferring to work in his studio from memory, photographs, or live models. The figure remained his primary subject; his few landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. It

9039-417: The firstlings of the new world." From the 1850s on, Corot painted many landscape souvenirs and paysages , dreamy imagined paintings of remembered locations from earlier visits painted with lightly and loosely dabbed strokes. In the 1860s, Corot was still mixing peasant figures with mythological ones, mixing Neoclassicism with Realism, causing one critic to lament, "If M. Corot would kill, once and for all,

9170-409: The fore and he broke with all his Jewish friends. His argumentative nature was deplored by Renoir, who said of him: "What a creature he was, that Degas! All his friends had to leave him; I was one of the last to go, but even I couldn't stay till the end." After 1890, Degas's eyesight, which had long troubled him, deteriorated further. Although he is known to have been working in pastel as late as

9301-493: The forests of Fontainebleau , the seaports along Normandy, and the villages west of Paris such as Ville-d'Avray (where his parents had a country house). Michallon also exposed him to the principles of the French Neoclassic tradition, as espoused in the famous treatise of theorist Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes , and exemplified in the works of French Neoclassicists Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin , whose major aim

9432-562: The freedom to go as he pleased. That freedom allowed him to take on students for informal sessions, including the Jewish artists Édouard Brandon and future Impressionist Camille Pissarro , who was briefly among them. Corot's vigor and perceptive advice impressed his students. Charles Daubigny stated, "He's a perfect Old Man Joy, this Father Corot. He is altogether a wonderful man, who mixes jokes in with his very good advice." Another student said of Corot, "the newspapers had so distorted Corot, putting Theocritus and Virgil in his hands, that I

9563-520: The group's exhibitions. The resulting rancor within the group contributed to its disbanding in 1886. As his financial situation improved through sales of his own work, he was able to indulge his passion for collecting works by artists he admired: old masters such as El Greco and such contemporaries as Manet , Cassatt , Pissarro , Cézanne , Gauguin , Van Gogh , and Édouard Brandon . Three artists he idolized, Ingres , Delacroix , and Daumier , were especially well represented in his collection. In

9694-523: The group. He had little in common with Monet and the other landscape painters in the group, whom he mocked for painting outdoors . Conservative in his social attitudes, he abhorred the scandal created by the exhibitions, as well as the publicity and advertising that his colleagues sought. He also deeply disliked being associated with the term "Impressionist", which the press had coined and popularized, and insisted on including non-Impressionist artists such as Jean-Louis Forain and Jean-François Raffaëlli in

9825-481: The late 1880s, Degas also developed a passion for photography. He photographed many of his friends, often by lamplight, as in his double portrait of Renoir and Mallarmé . Other photographs, depicting dancers and nudes, were used for reference in some of Degas's drawings, and paintings. As the years passed, Degas became isolated, due in part to his belief that a painter could have no personal life. The Dreyfus Affair controversy brought his anti-Semitic leanings to

9956-606: The later 1870s, Degas had mastered not only the traditional medium of oil on canvas , but pastel as well. The dry medium, which he applied in complex layers and textures, enabled him more easily to reconcile his facility for line with a growing interest in expressive color. In the mid-1870s, he also returned to the medium of etching , which he had neglected for ten years. At first he was guided in this by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic , himself an innovator in its use, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype . He produced some 300 monotypes over two periods, from

10087-474: The live model with both specificity and subtlety. Like his landscapes, they are characterized by a contemplative lyricism, with his late paintings L'Algérienne (Algerian Woman) and La Jeune Grecque (The Greek Girl) being fine examples. Corot painted about fifty portraits, mostly of family and friends. He also painted thirteen reclining nudes, with his Les Repos (1860) strikingly similar in pose to Ingres famous Le Grande Odalisque (1814), but Corot's female

10218-491: The management of Charles Deschamps. In London, Durand-Ruel pioneered many new strategies for exhibiting art such as providing a catalogue for each exhibition, charging an entrance fee, and strategically placing unknown works next to high-priced art to increase its value. During this time, he acquired iconic paintings of the early 19th century, such as Jacques-Louis David 's Marat and Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus to showcase in his exhibitions and enhance publicity. It

10349-406: The mid-1870s to the mid-1880s and again in the early 1890s. He was especially fascinated by the effects produced by monotype and frequently reworked the printed images with pastel. By 1880, sculpture had become one more strand to Degas's continuing endeavor to explore different media, although the artist displayed only one sculpture publicly during his lifetime. These changes in media engendered

10480-584: The more generous critics, his many friends considered, nevertheless, that he was officially neglected, and in 1874, a short time before his death, they presented him with a gold medal. He died in Paris of a stomach disorder aged 78 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery . A number of followers called themselves Corot's pupils. The best known are Camille Pissarro , Eugène Boudin , Berthe Morisot , Stanislas Lépine , Antoine Chintreuil , François-Louis Français , Charles Le Roux , and Alexandre Defaux . Corot

10611-574: The most important commercial advocate of French Impressionism in the world. He succeeded in establishing the market for Impressionism in the United States as well as in Europe. Edgar Degas , Mary Cassatt , Édouard Manet , Claude Monet , Berthe Morisot , Camille Pissarro , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , and Alfred Sisley are among the important Impressionist artists that Durand-Ruel helped to establish. He represented many lesser known artists including Maxime Dethomas or Hugues Merle amongst others. Part of

10742-419: The nude, you see, is the best lesson that a landscape painter can have. If someone knows how, without any tricks, to get down a figure, he is able to make a landscape; otherwise he can never do it." Through the 1840s, Corot continued to have his troubles with the critics (many of his works were flatly rejected for Salon exhibition), nor were many works purchased by the public. While recognition and acceptance by

10873-421: The nymphs of his woods and replace them with peasants, I should like him beyond measure." In reality, in later life his human figures did increase and the nymphs did decrease, but even the human figures were often set in idyllic reveries. In later life, Corot's studio was filled with students, models, friends, collectors, and dealers who came and went under the tolerant eye of the master, causing him to quip, "Why

11004-408: The other hand, they are not their equals in grace and kindness...Myself, as a painter I prefer the Italian woman, but I lean toward the French woman when it comes to emotion." In spite of his strong attraction to women, he wrote of his commitment to painting: "I have only one goal in life that I want to pursue faithfully: to make landscapes. This firm resolution keeps me from a serious attachment. That

11135-517: The paintings that Degas would produce in later life. Degas began to draw and paint women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and bathing (see: After the Bath, Woman drying herself ). The strokes that model the form are scribbled more freely than before; backgrounds are simplified. The meticulous naturalism of his youth gave way to an increasing abstraction of form. Except for his characteristically brilliant draftsmanship and obsession with

11266-564: The poetic effect of the imagery. As he stated, "I noticed that everything that was done correctly on the first attempt was more true, and the forms more beautiful." Corot's approach to his subjects was similarly traditional. Although he was a major proponent of plein-air studies, he was essentially a studio painter and few of his finished landscapes were completed before the motif. For most of his life, Corot would spend his summers travelling and collecting studies and sketches, and his winters finishing more polished, market-ready works. For example,

11397-520: The progressive École de 1830. As a result of his approach to art-dealing, Durand-Ruel is considered as the first dealer to show an appreciation for Impressionist art. Durand-Ruel was the subject of a major temporary exhibition titled "Inventing Impressionism" held at the National Gallery in London in 2015. Durand-Ruel owned a violin made by Francois Lupot in 1810 until his death. He bought

11528-481: The pursuit of art as an end in itself. By seeking out the most authentic art, and investing in artists that he believed showed talent above all else, Durand-Ruel pioneered what it meant to be a modern art dealer. Furthermore, both Paul Durand-Ruel and his father attempted to separate their own political views from the subject matter of the art they supported; despite being conservatives, the Durand-Ruels invested in

11659-596: The rest of his life. He immediately rented a studio on quai Voltaire. During the period when Corot acquired the means to devote himself to art, landscape painting was on the upswing and generally divided into two camps: one―historical landscape by Neoclassicists in Southern Europe representing idealized views of real and fancied sites peopled with ancient, mythological, and biblical figures; and two―realistic landscape, more common in Northern Europe, which

11790-585: The running of the family business from their father. They expanded into the American market, buying works by Eugène Delacroix, the Barbizon school and the Old Masters, and later by the Impressionists. But Charles is cited as having died in 1892. The brothers held exhibitions of the work of Odilon Redon in 1894, Pierre Bonnard in 1896 and Paul Gauguin in 1903. In 1911 Joseph and Georges took over control of

11921-615: The salon of 1831, another View of the Forest of Fontainebleau . While there he met the members of the Barbizon school ; Théodore Rousseau , Paul Huet , Constant Troyon , Jean-François Millet , and the young Charles-François Daubigny . Corot exhibited one portrait and several landscapes at the Salon in 1831 and 1833. His reception by the critics at the Salon was cool and Corot decided to return to Italy, having failed to satisfy them with his Neoclassical themes. During his two return trips to Italy, he visited Northern Italy, Venice, and again

12052-464: The sculptures were not created as aids to painting, although the artist habitually explored ways of linking graphic art and oil painting, drawing and pastel, sculpture and photography. Degas assigned the same significance to sculpture as to drawing: "Drawing is a way of thinking, modelling another". After Degas's death, his heirs found in his studio 150 wax sculptures, many in disrepair. They consulted foundry owner Adrien Hébrard, who concluded that 74 of

12183-595: The shop. The store was a famous destination for fashionable Parisians and earned the family an excellent income. Corot was the second of three children born to the family, who lived above their shop during those years. Corot received a scholarship to study at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen, but left after having scholastic difficulties and entered a boarding school. He "was not a brilliant student, and throughout his entire school career he did not get

12314-593: The spring of 1829, Corot came to Barbizon to paint in the Forest of Fontainebleau ; he had first painted in the forest at Chailly in 1822. He returned to Barbizon in the autumn of 1830 and in the summer of 1831, where he made drawings and oil studies, from which he made a painting intended for the Salon of 1830; his View of the Forest of Fontainebleau (now in the National Gallery in Washington) and, for

12445-658: The success of Impressionism was due to the international demand. Durand-Ruel established a network of galleries and exhibitions in many countries, with hubs in London, New York, and Berlin. Regarding the Americans' open-mindedness towards Impressionism, Durand-Ruel once said, "The American public does not laugh. It buys!" "Without America," he said, "I would have been lost, ruined, after having bought so many Monets and Renoirs. The two exhibitions there in 1886 saved me. The American public bought moderately . . . but thanks to that public, Monet and Renoir were enabled to live and after that

12576-405: The third floor, which became his first studio as well. With his father's help Corot apprenticed to a draper, but he hated commercial life and despised what he called "business tricks", yet he faithfully remained in the trade until he was 26, when his father consented to him adopting the profession of art. Later Corot stated, "I told my father that business and I were simply incompatible, and that I

12707-590: The title of his Bathers of the Borromean Isles (1865–1870) refers to Lake Maggiore in Italy, despite the fact that Corot had not been to Italy in 20 years. His emphasis on drawing images from the imagination and memory rather than direct observation was in line with the tastes of the Salon jurors, of which he was a member. In the 1860s, Corot became interested in photography, taking photos himself and becoming acquainted with many early photographers, which had

12838-418: The traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting." Degas created a substantial number of other sculptures during a span of four decades, but they remained unseen by the public until a posthumous exhibition in 1918. Neither The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years nor any of Degas's other sculptures were cast in bronze during the artist's lifetime. Degas scholars have agreed that

12969-493: The trend in favor of Realism and away from Neoclassicism. For a short period between 1821 and 1822, Corot studied with Achille Etna Michallon , a landscape painter of Corot's age who was a protégé of the painter Jacques-Louis David and who was already a well-respected teacher. Michallon had a great influence on Corot's career. Corot's drawing lessons included tracing lithographs , copying three-dimensional forms, and making landscape sketches and paintings outdoors, especially in

13100-667: The two. With his parents' support, Corot followed the well-established pattern of French painters who went to Italy to study the masters of the Italian Renaissance and to draw the crumbling monuments of Roman antiquity. A condition by his parents before leaving was that he paint a self-portrait for them, his first. Corot's stay in Italy from 1825 to 1828 was a highly formative and productive one, during which he completed over 200 drawings and 150 paintings. He worked and traveled with several young French painters also studying abroad who painted together and socialized at night in

13231-460: The utter powerlessness of my palette." He learned to master the light and to paint the stones and sky in subtle and dramatic variation. It was not only Italian architecture and light which captured Corot's attention. The late-blooming Corot was entranced with Italian females as well: "They still have the most beautiful women in the world that I have met....their eyes, their shoulders, their hands are spectacular. In that, they surpass our women, but on

13362-716: The viewpoint to that of a distracted spectator at a ballet, and says that "it is Degas' fascination with the depiction of movement, including the movement of a spectator's eyes as during a random glance, that is properly speaking 'Impressionist'." Degas's mature style is distinguished by conspicuously unfinished passages, even in otherwise tightly rendered paintings. He frequently blamed his eye troubles for his inability to finish, an explanation that met with some skepticism from colleagues and collectors who reasoned, as Stuckey explains, that "his pictures could hardly have been executed by anyone with inadequate vision". The artist provided another clue when he described his predilection "to begin

13493-496: The violin from Albert Caressa as stated on the certificate issued by Jacques Francais in 1955. The violin is offered on sale at 2023 October Auction of Ingles and Hayday. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( UK : / ˈ k ɒr oʊ / KORR -oh , US : / k ə ˈ r oʊ , k ɔː ˈ r oʊ / kə- ROH , kor- OH , French: [ʒɑ̃ batist kamij kɔʁo] ; 16 July 1796  – 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot ,

13624-525: The waxes could be cast in bronze . It is assumed that, except for the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen , all Degas bronzes worldwide are cast from surmoulages  [ fr ] (i.e., cast from bronze masters). A surmoulage bronze is a bit smaller, and shows less surface detail, than its original bronze mold. The Hébrard Foundry cast the bronzes from 1919 until 1936, and closed down in 1937, shortly before Hébrard's death. In 2004,

13755-495: The works for later return, he would touch up and sign student and collector copies, and he would loan works to professional copiers and to rental agencies. According to Corot cataloguist Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, at one copying studio "The master's complacent brush authenticated these replicas with a few personal and decisive retouchings. When he was no longer there to finish his "doubles", they went on producing them without him." The cataloging of Corot's works in an attempt to separate

13886-452: Was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures , prints , and drawings. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism , he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist , and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did. Degas

14017-409: Was a "big child, shy and awkward. He blushed when spoken to. Before the beautiful ladies who frequented his mother's salon, he was embarrassed and fled like a wild thing... Emotionally, he was an affectionate and well-behaved son, who adored his mother and trembled when his father spoke." When Corot's parents moved into a new residence in 1817, the 21-year-old Corot moved into the dormer-windowed room on

14148-421: Was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching . A pivotal figure in landscape painting, his vast output simultaneously referenced the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipated the plein-air innovations of Impressionism . Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was born in Paris on 16 July 1796 in a house at 125 Rue du Bac , now demolished. His family were bourgeois people—his father

14279-441: Was a necessity of good landscape painting, to add human context and scale, and it was even more important in allegorical landscapes. To that end Corot worked on figure studies in native garb as well as nude. During winter, he spent time in a studio but returned to work outside as quickly as weather permitted. The intense light of Italy posed considerable challenges, "This sun gives off a light that makes me despair. It makes me feel

14410-422: Was a superb draftsman , and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers and bathing female nudes . In addition to ballet dancers and bathing women, Degas painted racehorses and racing jockeys , as well as portraits. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and their portrayal of human isolation. At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be

14541-413: Was a wig maker and his mother, Marie-Françoise Corot , a milliner—and unlike the experience of some of his artistic colleagues, throughout his life he never felt the want of money, as his parents made good investments and ran their businesses well. After his parents married, they bought the millinery shop where his mother had worked and his father gave up his career as a wigmaker to run the business side of

14672-465: Was an important advocate and successful art dealer of the Barbizon School but he is best known for his relationship with a group of painters who would become known as the Impressionists. He had three sons who worked with him in the business, Joseph Durand-Ruel (1862–1928), Charles Durand-Ruel (1865–1892), and Georges Durand-Ruel (1866–1931). After 1888 Joseph and his brothers began to take over

14803-468: Was completely centralized and relied on the state and the French Academy , making it difficult for artists to gain attention otherwise. The Impressionists were the first group of artists excluded from the Salon to successfully launch a series of art exhibitions outside of the state-sponsored system, and they did so with the assistance of Paul Durand-Ruel and other dealers. The exhibitions relied on

14934-442: Was drawn to the tensions present between men and women. In his early paintings, Degas already evidenced the mature style that he would later develop more fully by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual viewpoints. By the late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial forays into history painting to an original observation of contemporary life. Racecourse scenes provided an opportunity to depict horses and their riders in

15065-426: Was during this time that Durand-Ruel began to introduce paintings by the then unknown Monet and Pissarro in his exhibitions. From 1872, he began making large purchases of Impressionist paintings. Durand-Ruel hosted London's first exclusively Impressionist exhibitions in 1882 and 1883. These exhibitions proved unsuccessful and almost bankrupted Durand-Ruel's enterprise. In 1905, Durand-Ruel returned to London to showcase

15196-474: Was focused in Berlin, through a collaboration with German art dealer Paul Cassirer , who operated a permanent art gallery there. His strategy followed seven innovative principles: Through these principles, Durand-Ruel transformed art markets into a system where artists are monetarily supported by financiers impressed by their work. Between 1891 and 1922, Durand-Ruel purchased nearly 12,000 paintings. In 1920, at

15327-620: Was found to be defective, and for the rest of his life his eye problems were a constant worry to him. After the war, Degas began in 1872 an extended stay in New Orleans , where his brother René and a number of other relatives lived. Staying at the home of his Creole uncle, Michel Musson, on Esplanade Avenue , Degas produced a number of works, many depicting family members. One of Degas's New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans , garnered favorable attention back in France, and

15458-465: Was getting a divorce." The business experience proved beneficial, however, by helping him develop an aesthetic sense through his exposure to the colors and textures of the fabrics. Perhaps out of boredom, he turned to oil painting around 1821 and began immediately with landscapes. Starting in 1822 after the death of his sister, Corot began receiving a yearly allowance of 1500 francs which adequately financed his new career, studio, materials, and travel for

15589-577: Was his first Salon entry, View at Narni (1827), where he took his quick, natural study of a ruin of a Roman aqueduct in dusty bright sun and transformed it into a falsely idyllic pastoral setting with giant shade trees and green lawns, a conversion meant to appeal to the Neoclassical jurors. Many critics have valued highly his plein-air Italian paintings for their "germ of Impressionism", their faithfulness to natural light, and their avoidance of academic values, even though they were intended as studies. Several decades later, Impressionism revolutionized art by

15720-549: Was his only work purchased by a museum (the Pau ) during his lifetime. Degas returned to Paris in 1873 and his father died the following year, whereupon Degas learned that his brother René had amassed enormous business debts. To preserve his family's reputation, Degas sold his house and an art collection he had inherited, and used the money to pay off his brother's debts. Dependent for the first time in his life on sales of his artwork for income, he produced much of his greatest work during

15851-474: Was in a state of financial distress. It was during this time that Durand-Ruel developed seven innovative principles for supporting and increasing the value of art. Through organizing international exhibitions and curating an active public discourse around his art, Durand-Ruel's investment in La Belle École proved immensely profitable, and helped finance his later support for Impressionist artists. He recognized

15982-537: Was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet , whom Degas had met in 1864 (while both were copying the same Diego Velázquez portrait in the Louvre, according to a story that may be apocryphal). Upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard , where his partaking in the defense of Paris left him little time for painting. During rifle training his eyesight

16113-461: Was known for his wit, which could often be cruel. He was characterized as an "old curmudgeon" by the novelist George Moore , and he deliberately cultivated his reputation as a misanthropic bachelor. In the 1870s, Degas gravitated towards the republican circles of Léon Gambetta . However, his republicanism did not come untainted, and signs of the prejudice and irritability which would overtake him in old age were occasionally manifested. He fired

16244-412: Was largely faithful to actual topography, architecture, and flora, and which often showed figures of peasants. In both approaches, landscape artists would typically begin with outdoor sketching and preliminary painting, with finishing work done indoors. Highly influential upon French landscape artists in the early 19th century was the work of Englishmen John Constable and J. M. W. Turner , who reinforced

16375-404: Was most interested in the presentation of his paintings, patronizing Pierre Cluzel as a framer, and disliking ornate styles of the day, often insisting on his choices for the framing as a condition of purchase. Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years . A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in

16506-462: Was not unusual for him to repeat a subject many times, varying the composition or treatment. He was a deliberative artist whose works, as Andrew Forge has written, "were prepared, calculated, practiced, developed in stages. They were made up of parts. The adjustment of each part to the whole, their linear arrangement, was the occasion for infinite reflection and experiment." Degas explained, "In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement". He

16637-403: Was particularly valuable in gaining an understanding of the challenges of both the mid-range and panoramic perspective, and in effectively placing man-made structures in a natural setting. He also learned how to give buildings and rocks the effect of volume and solidity with proper light and shadow, while using a smooth and thin technique. Furthermore, placing suitable figures in a secular setting

16768-529: Was quite surprised to find him knowing neither Greek nor Latin...His welcome is very open, very free, very amusing: he speaks or listens to you while hopping on one foot or on two; he sings snatches of opera in a very true voice", but he has a "shrewd, biting side carefully hidden behind his good nature." By the mid-1850s, Corot's increasingly impressionistic style began to get the recognition that fixed his place in French art. "M. Corot excels...in reproducing vegetation in its fresh beginnings; he marvelously renders

16899-408: Was regarded with personal affection, and acknowledged as one of the five or six greatest landscape painters the world had seen, along with Meindert Hobbema , Claude Lorrain , J. M. W. Turner and John Constable . In his long and productive life, he painted over 3,000 paintings. Though often credited as a precursor of Impressionist practice, Corot approached his landscapes more traditionally than

17030-585: Was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole from New Orleans , Louisiana , and Augustin De Gas, a banker. His maternal grandfather Germain Musson was born in Port-au-Prince , Haiti , of French descent, and had settled in New Orleans in 1810. Degas (he adopted this less grandiose spelling of his family name when he became an adult) began his schooling at age eleven, enrolling in

17161-597: Was the representation of ideal Beauty in nature, linked with events in ancient times. Though this school was on the decline, it still held sway in the Salon , the foremost art exhibition in France attended by thousands at each event. Corot later stated, "I made my first landscape from nature...under the eye of this painter, whose only advice was to render with the greatest scrupulousness everything I saw before me. The lesson worked; since then I have always treasured precision." After Michallon's early death in 1822, Corot studied with Michallon's teacher, Jean-Victor Bertin , among

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