Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 - 1875) was the leading French painter of the Barbizon school in the mid-nineteenth century. Claude Monet called of him:

"There is only one master here and his name is Corot. We are nothing weigh against to him - nothing."

Corot often praised as a predecessor of Impressionism, but he painted his landscapes in more traditional way than is generally supposed. 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 the poetic effect of the imagery. As he declared:

"I noticed that everything that was done correctly on the first attempt was more true, and the forms more beautiful."