Near Rome (Environs de Rome)
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Description
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
France, 1796–1875
Reading Beneath the Trees (La Lecture sous les arbres)
1874
Lithograph
Museum purchase 1962/2.19
Environs de Rome
1866
Etching
Museum purchase, 1930.7
Corot was a pivotal figure in French landscape painting and is often cited in relation to the rise of Impressionism. His work melded two dominant traditions: the highly constructed landscape that derived from study in Italy, and the emerging emphasis on plein-air (outdoors) technique that captured the immediacy of the scene. However, even in his oil sketches Corot’s painting evidenced a firm structure and his landscapes often conveyed his elegiac personal responses to the scene.
The two prints on view here show Corot’s rich graphic work in two print media, etching and lithography. His etching depicting the area around Rome relies less on direct observation and more on sentiment and subjectivity. In these Arcadian images, the figures reflect the mood of the landscape; his lithograph of a woman reading under a stand of trees exhibits just this mood of poetic reverie.
(6/28/10)
Subject Matter:
Landscape image with trees in foreground and a city in the distance through those trees.
Physical Description:
The foreground is trees which frame, in the distance, a church-like structure. On the right are two tree trunks with little foliage. The left side from the bottom and halfway up is darkened area. There are 3 distinguishable trees near the center of the image that are full of foliage. Just to the right of those trees is a tree just as big as the church-like structure.;
Usage Rights:
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.