Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
With Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), the all-father of the modern
French landscape school, and chief of the little band of enthusiasts
who grouped themselves about him at Barbizon, we touch the greatest
artistic movement of the age. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875),
the ever-young and gentle spirit, the tenderest emanation of the
century; Jean Francois Millet (1814-1875), the inspired and cultured
peasant, mightiest of them all, grand and solemn interpreter of the
fundamental and tragic pathos of human toil, ever discerning God's
image in the most bent and ill-shapen of his creatures; Constant
Troyon (1810-1865), the grandest animal painter of his day; Narcisse
Diaz de la Pena (1809-1876), once a poor errand lad with a maimed leg,
painter of forest depths and of the rich hues of summer foliage;
Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878), latest of the little band,
faithful and tender student of nature, painter of the countryside, of
the murmuring waters of the Seine and the Oise--these once despised
and rejected of men have long won fame and appreciation. No princely
patronage shone on them in their early struggles nor smoothed their
path; they wrought out the beauty of their souls under the hard
discipline of poverty in loving and awful communion with Nature. They
have revealed to us new tones of colour in the air, in the forest and
the plain, and a new sense of the pathos and beauty in simple lives
and common things.
827, L. wall, is Rousseau's Forest at Fontainebleau, a fine effect of
setting sun and loving representation of his favourite tree, the oak;
829 and 830, R. wall, are also by this master. On the same wall 643,
Millet's Spring, whose coloration at first sight may seem forced and
strange, is absolutely faithful to Nature, as the writer who once
observed similar colour effects in the forest can testify. 644, The
Gleaners, "the three fates of poverty," is, next to the Angelus, the
most popular of Millet's works. Corot, the Theocritus of modern
painting, is represented by 138, the lovely and poetical Morning, 141,
Souvenir de Mortefontaine and 141 _bis_, Castelgandolfo. R. and L.
are, 889 and 890, two grand and massive compositions by Troyon: Oxen
going to the Plough; and, The Return to the Farm: landscapes that
smell of the very earth, and rendered with a marvellous breadth of
style and penetrating sympathy; 184, end wall, and 185, R. of
entrance, Grape Harvest in Burgundy, and Spring, are by Daubigny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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