JEAN-BAPTISTE-CAMILLE COROT (FRENCH, 1798-1875)

‘As a painter, Corot follows in no one’s footsteps; he is sometimes reminiscent of Claude Lorrain, but only distantly,’ Charles Perrier wrote in 1855 (C. Perrier, ‘Exposition Universelle des beaux-arts, IX. La peinture française – Paysage’, L’Artiste, 5th ser., 15, 1855, p. 143). The Exposition Universelle of 1855 marked a high point in Corot’s career. It was at this exhibition that the artist’s poetic sensibility and pervasive taste for abstraction was universally remarked upon. All of Corot’s entries were favourably received, the artist won a first-class medal and one landscape, Souvenir de Marcoussis (Musée de Louvre, Paris), was even purchased by Napoléon III for his private collection. It was during this period that Corot came to be recognised as the greatest French landscape painter and was first dubbed ‘the poet of the landscape’ by the critic Philippe de Chennevières.
Corot visited Italy three times in his early career; the first time in 1825 at the age of 29, returning for six months in 1834 and his final trip to Rome in 1843, where he revisited many of the sites that made such a strong impression on his second visit nine years before. The Italian trips were vital to Corot’s development as an artist, for it was in Italy that the artist developed his acute appreciation of light effects and it was in the clear light of Italy that the artist began to infuse his landscapes with the glowing luminosity so sought-after in his greatest paintings.
Souvenir de la villa Borghèse is not meant to be a literal depiction of the famous Roman landmark. Rather, it is a sensual evocation of a memory from years before. The fact that Corot chose to entitle the work ‘souvenir’ rather than ‘paysage’ clearly denotes Corot’s emphasis on the creation of an image remembered – not the tangible form but the idea, or impression of landscape, light and form. In a few quick, deft strokes of bright orange, pink, blue and brilliant white, Corot brings to life the figure of a woman, her cap, shawl and skirt and places her firmly in the surrounding landscape. The architecture of the villa is created out of daubs of grey-green, ochre and white so quickly applied, but with a surety that lends substance to the stonework of the building. At the same time, and with the same handling of paint, Corot captures the ephemeral quality of sunlight on green leaves. Also with consummate subtlety, the artist defines space with the pond in the foreground cut off by the picture plane increasing a sense of immediacy, and the track receding through space at a diagonal created by one brushstroke draws the viewer back to the villa itself. The hazy trees behind the villa and the soft blue sky create a far distance defined only by infinity.
Corot’s unique ability was summed up by Edmond About, writing about the exposition of 1855, ‘No artist has more style or can better communicate his ideas in a landscape…As they pass through his imagination, objects take on a vague and delightful form. Colours soften and melt, everything becomes fresh, young, harmonious: he is the poet of the landscape…His water has an intoxicating limpidity; but even if we camped out in his studio, we would never learn in ten years how he succeeds in rendering lithe beauty of water. His trees are drawn without contour and painted without colour; how is it done?’ (E. About, Voyage à travers l’Exposition des beaux-arts (peinture et sculpture), Paris, 1855, pp. 217-218).