Painting Methods of Corot
(Leaning Tree)
I recently discovered that the National Gallery (London) produces an annual Technical Bulletin that looks to “study of the materials and techniques of painting”. A perfect source for exploring a greater varieties of approaches to landscape art.
This week I read Six Paintings by Corot: Methods, Materials and Sources by Sarah Herring. It’s very accessible, so anyone interested can read it in full here.
Now I know very little about Corot, so it was a fascinating article and an opportunity to learn a bit of background.
A Brief History of Corot
Corot was born in Paris in 1976, his father was a cloth merchant and mother a dress maker. The family were of the respectable and prudent tradesmen sort.
It wasn’t until the age of 26 that Corot started painting lessons, after following in his father’s footsteps as an apprentice draper fell through. Despite claiming to be self-taught, he actually studied in the ateliers of Michallon and then Jean Victor Bertin - students of the famed Valenciennes. Perhaps Corot didn’t think much of the education, but Michallon was the first to win the Salon prize Prix de Rome in 1817 and the first to exhibit a landscape “from nature” in the Salon. It was from Bertin that Corot “learned his sense of lay-out and composition and the method of using spirit-thined oil paint of obtain total values and flat areas of color”.1
Corot was something of a forerunner to the Barbizon School, having visited and studied in the famed forests of Fountainbleau from 1822. He, along with others like Rouseeau, Dupre, and Huet, “were partly responsible for creating a climate in which landscape paintings of the everyday world could begin to compete for serious critical attention alongside landscape paintings based on classical themes"2. It is thought the presence of Constable’s work in Paris in 1824 had a considerable affect on Corot.
So by the time Corot left for Italy in 1825 for a three year visit (sounds nice) he was already instilled with a practice of outdoor painting of everyday scenes.
He was known for being very generous, buying a house for an aging Daumier and leaving in his will 10,000 gold francs to Millet’s widow.
Corot died in 1875, a month after Millet.
Anyway, that’s enough backstory.
(Peasants under the Trees at Dawn)
Practices And Techniques
Everything in this section is taken from the above mentioned article. Things we know:
Corot used the more congenial summer months to get out of the studio, “filling numerous sketchbooks and drawings, and painting in the open air”.
In his paintings, he “followed the academic practice in the construction of his compositions, sketching with a pencil before painting an ebauche, or preliminary monochrome layer of darks and lights”.
He had many canvases on the go at any one time, so that he could work in layers.
An ‘ebauche’, or initial sketch, was essentially an underdrawing made with a limited palette of thinned paint, “using umber, black, and white, heightened with sienna and ochre” with an emphasis on tonal values. This layer is about laying down the composition and value arrangement.
Only once the ebauche was fixed (and presumably dry), would he then “obtain the colour and harmony of his work with the help of coloured paints, both pure and thinned”.
Corot always left the sky for last, choosing instead to paint his trees first, as it was likely to be the darkest value.
In some of Corot’s paintings there are traces of as many as 5-6 layers.
Apparently there is a debate about where Corot used glazes, but it is indisputable that many of his paintings do have glazing applied - whether or not by his hand.
So there you have a rough outline of the process Corot followed. (1) A crayon/pencil sketch, (2) an underdrawing in thinned paint of just umber/black, (3) followed by layers of colour, (4) glazing?
Corot’s Palette & Materials
Corot used the typical mix of traditional pigments:
earth colours - ochres, siennas, umbers
vermillion
red and yellow lake pigments (read more here, maybe a subject for a later post?)
But it also thought he used the newly available pigments emerging from the nascent field of chemistry, such as:
cobalt
viridian
emerald green.
So that’s it. I hope this is helpful for anyone else exploring landscapes from the pre-impressionist period! If you want to learn more about Corot, I highly recommend the National Gallery website, chalk full of goodies.
The Barbizon School, Bouret
The Barbizon School & The Origin of Impressionism, Adams.