Future Study Days

The first English artist to paint Venice seriously was Turner who made three visits between 1819 and 1840. Although these were brief, Venice was to have a great impact on his later style and he produced a large quantity of wonderfully loose oils and watercolours. John Ruskin also fell in love with Venice and his three-volume book ‘The Stones of Venice’ became a best seller in Europe and the United States. Not only did Ruskin produce fine watercolours and photographs of Venice, he also encouraged younger artists like Goodwin, Boyce and Inchbold to paint there.

In 1879 following his disastrous court case against Ruskin, James McNeil Whistler arrived in Venice bankrupt and depressed. The Fine Art Society had paid for him to work there for three months, but he remained for over a year producing some of his best etchings, pastels and oils. His Venetian exhibitions in Bond Street were an enormous success and his position as the leading modern artist in Britain was re-established.

John Singer Sargent had been to Venice as a child, but returned in 1880 to start a long love affair with the city. His relations bought the Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal which became his spiritual home from where he set off each summer to paint sparkling watercolours, some of his finest works.

Other artists working there before the First World War include Walter Sickert and Arthur Melville. The day ends with a brief look at contemporary artists Ken Howard, Diana Armfield and Bernard Dunstan who have all made Venice their own.

Details to follow

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The Barbizon School

Who were the Barbizon School? They were some of the first painters to paint “en plein air”, taking their inspiration from a painting they had seen in Paris by John Constable: “The Hay Wain”.  This was rejected by Londoners but revolutionised landscape painting in France.

This loose association of artists who met in the inn in Barbizon – a small village near Fontainebleau –  included such names as Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet to name but three. They in their turn inspired the French Impressionists some of whom studied in Barbizon.

The Island and Bridge of San Bartolomeo, Rome by Camille Corot (1825/28)

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.

Portrait of the Artist at work (Le Botin). Etching by Charkes Francois Daubigny (1861)

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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Alfred Sisley: Women Going to the Woods 1866

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.

Presenter: Kathy McLauchlan

Dr Kathy McLauchlan

Graduated at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute. In 2001 completed a PhD thesis on French painters in Rome during the 19th century. A freelance lecturer specialising in 19th-century art history, she has published catalogues and articles for the British Council and the Barbican Art Gallery. Currently a course director at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where she organises courses and study days on the history of art and design.