Mountains in Auvergne 1842

Editor: So here we have Corot’s "Mountains in Auvergne," painted in 1842. It’s an oil painting, a landscape, and to me, the brushstrokes give it a feeling of being unfinished or transient. What’s your take on it? Curator: Well, what strikes me is the raw materiality of the paint itself. Notice how Corot isn’t trying to hide the fact that this is oil on canvas. Look at the visible brushstrokes, the thick impasto in the foreground. How does this visible process influence your understanding? Editor: I guess it feels more honest? Like I’m seeing the artist’s labor. It makes me think about where the pigments came from, the whole industry behind creating art supplies. Curator: Exactly. Corot’s decision to embrace this "sketch-like" quality wasn't just about capturing a fleeting moment. It reflects a shift in artistic production. How do you think the rise of plein-air painting and the availability of pre-mixed paints impacted artists' relationship with their work? Editor: That’s interesting. Maybe it democratized the process, moving away from the traditional workshop model and allowing more individual expression and more artists being able to just do landscape? Curator: It definitely decentralized production. It allowed for more spontaneous, immediate responses to the landscape, shifting artistic authority. Instead of highly rendered, allegorical landscapes, you had this very tangible depiction of Auvergne. Does knowing this background change how you see the painting now? Editor: It does! It’s not just a pretty picture of mountains. It is a document of Corot's interaction with that space, a snapshot of material availability and production and changing social values in art at the time, that helped lead into Impressionism. Curator: Precisely. We often overlook the physical processes that underpin art. This exercise in observing materiality can revolutionize the way we perceive visual expression.