id: 166672 accession number: 2008.386 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.386 updated: 2024-03-26 02:01:12.336000 Landscape (The Large Tree), c. 1865–70. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875). Charcoal with stumping, erasing, and wet brushwork on light brown wove paper; sheet: 24.2 x 41.8 cm (9 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.386 title: Landscape (The Large Tree) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1865–70 creation date earliest: 1860 creation date latest: 1875 current location: creditline: Bequest of Muriel Butkin copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: charcoal with stumping, erasing, and wet brushwork on light brown wove paper department: Drawings collection: Drawings type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875) - artist Camille Corot's earlier biographers presented him as a naive artist separated from commercial concerns who painted whatever pleased him in the French countryside and from his own emotions. For these writers his importance lay in his loosely painted, atmospheric landscapes, for which later modernists called him the precursor to impressionism. This conception of the artist has undergone significant revision with recent scholarship. Corot never seemed to accept the impressionists' more radical work, especially their enthusiasm for contemporary urban and suburban themes. He represented timeless, rural views disconnected from the industrialization and modernization of nineteenth-century France. Following his father in the clothing trade, Corot worked for eight years before the death of his younger sister in 1821 provided him with the additional income (her annual allowance) to enable him to devote himself to painting. In 1822 he began to study with the landscape painter Achille-Etna Michallon (1796-1822), winner of the first Grand Prix de Rome in historicized landscape, and after Michallon's early death that year, with Bertin (q.v.). Both Michallon and Bertin had trained with Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819), whose later eighteenth-century treatise on landscape painting practice urged artists to study nature closely. In addition, Michallon frequented the village of Barbizon and the forest of Fontainebleau, which would become important subjects for Corot and the group of painters known as the Barbizon school. In 1825 Corot made his first trip to Italy, following in the tradition of the French academy but also the independent precedent of the seventeenth-century French painter Claude Lorrain. There Corot joined an international circle of artists, including Léopold Robert (1794-1835) and Aligny (q.v.), who struggled to resolve the contradictory phases of empirical study out of doors and synthetic recreation in the studio. From Rome, he sent his first submissions to the Paris Salon in 1827, among them The View at Narni (National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa). These early Italian views generally feature a bright, warm light with few areas in shadow. Corot gradually shifted from this early style to one in the 1840s that frequently included larger figures in the middle ground, more complex light effects, and a duller, earthy palette of greens and browns. He continued to use his outdoor works as models for finished canvases but freely adapted the compositions, forms, lighting, and color. The question of finish did not only pertain to the relationship between plein-air studies and studio compositions, which he called paysage composé (invented landscape). Corot sometimes added figures to landscapes that he had painted years earlier and even asked fellow painters such as Diaz de la Peña (q.v.) to paint them. His titles often referred to the geographical location that inspired the image, and some included the word souvenir (broad-ly translated as memory), which suggests recreating or revisiting some experience. The critical reception of Corot's work fluctuated. His first Salon submissions passed the jury, but during the 1830s he was first overlooked and then attacked by the critics. By the 1840s his fortunes had improved, and he even sold one Salon picture to the French state. In more radical circles, the critic-poet Charles Baudelaire held Corot up as a leader in contemporary landscape painting. Corot received the Legion of Honor in 1846 as well as a municipal commission to decorate the baptismal fonts in the church of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris. In the early 1850s Corot transformed his style again. He developed silvery tones and diffuse lighting effects applied in a few thin layers, over which he added small touches of brighter color for highlights. The soft glimmer and evocative atmosphere of these later works earned him commercial and critical success. During the last decade, Corot turned toward the single figure as subject. The meditative poses and expressions of these figures reminded some contemporary critics of seventeenth-century painting, especially the realism of Spanish and Dutch pictures. But Corot's landscapes remained his most admired work, and during his lifetime imitations or fakes were sold under his name. --- measurements: Sheet: 24.2 x 41.8 cm (9 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: light brown wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: inscribed, lower left, in charcoal: COROT translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin opening date: 2001-08-26T00:00:00 French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002). title: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2023-01-20T05:00:00 Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'French Drawings of the XIX. Century. Obach & Co., London (February–March 1907).', 'opening_date': '1907-03-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Corot: 1796–1875. Art Institute of Chicago (October 6–November 13,1960).', 'opening_date': '2013-11-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': '19th- and 20th-Century European Drawings. American Federation of Arts, New York (July 1965–July 1966).', 'opening_date': '1965-07-01T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'The Forest of Fontainebleau, Refuge of Reality: French Landscape 1800 to 1870. Shepherd Gallery, New York (April 22–June 10, 1972).', 'opening_date': '1972-06-10T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'French and Other European Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. Shepherd Gallery, New York (Winter 1979–80).', 'opening_date': '1979-01-01T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE James Staats Forbes [1823-1904], London date: ?-1904 footnotes: *
According to inscriptions on old mount, as recorded by Shepherd Gallery.
citations: (Obach & Co., London, England) date: 1907 footnotes: * citations: (Allan Frumkin [1927-2002], Chicago, IL) date: ?-? footnotes: citations: Victor Carlson [1934-2018], Baltimore, MD date: by 1965-before 1981 footnotes: citations: (Shepherd Gallery, New York, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH) date: 1981 footnotes: citations: Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1981-2008 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: March 2, 2009 footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS French Drawings of the XIX. Century. Exh. cat. London: Obach & Co, 1907. page number: Mentioned: no. 53 url: Corot: 1796-–1875, 29. Exh. cat. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1960. page number: Mentioned: no. 166 url: Dee, Elaine Evans. 19th- and 20th-Century European Drawings. Exh. cat. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1965. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 11, 19, no. 12 url: Ittmann, John W., Robert Kashey, Martin L.H. Reymert, and Victor Carlson. The Forest of Fontainebleau, Refuge of Reality: French Landscape 1800 to 1870. Exh. cat. New York: Shepherd Gallery, 1972. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: cat. no. 17 url: Mendelowitz, Daniel M., and Duane A. Wakeham. A Guide to Drawing, 5th ed.. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993. page number: Reproduced: p. 93, fig. 6-16. url: Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin, no. 45. Exh. cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 100-101, no. 45 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.386/2008.386_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.386/2008.386_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2008.386/2008.386_full.tif