1. Traditions and Techniques in Landscape

At the end of the 18th century nobody imagined that landscape painting would one day lead innovation in French art. Yet artists were already starting to experiment with plein air painting, seeking to capture the transient effects of light and weather through painting directly from the motif. This talk sets the traditional ideals of landscape painting against developments in the methods and materials employed by landscape painters in their search for truth to nature.

11:50 Lecture 2

Barbizon Begins

During the 1820s French painters including Camille Corot and Georges Michel started to explore new approaches to landscape, turning from the classical motifs of an earlier generation to scenes closer to home. This transition towards greater naturalism and immediacy formed the basis for the work of the Barbizon school from the 1830s onwards. In fact, the title Barbizon ‘school’ is somewhat misleading. Its leading figures – Théodore Rousseau, Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-François Millet – did not work together as any kind of organized group. Rather, the ‘school’ was a floating population of artists drawn to an unspoiled wilderness around 35 miles southeast of Paris called the Forest of Fontainbleau, with the village of Barbizon as one of their main centres. Their work would transform the course of French landscape painting.

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The Impact of Barbizon

By the 1860s artists of the Barbizon school had achieved fame at home and abroad. Many landscape painters from across the world wanted to learn from the new naturalism. Of the older generation, Camille Corot was generous with his time and advice. His example – in painting from the motif to capture the transient effects of nature – was of particular importance to young French painters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet. Barbizon would be a starting point for the Impressionist landscape. It also served as a model for artists in search an alternative lifestyle, removed from the stresses, distractions, and expenses of city life. From America to Russia and from Sweden to Hungary, artists set up small communities where they could live and work alongside each other, producing work that celebrated the purity and simplicity of rural life.