Landscape 1865

Curator: Painted around 1865, this is Camille Corot's "Landscape," executed in oil on canvas. Editor: It’s incredibly atmospheric. Almost dreamlike, with the soft greens and diffused light. There's something very peaceful about it, and a little melancholic, perhaps. Curator: Let's consider Corot's plein-air technique. Working directly in nature afforded a freedom in capturing transient atmospheric effects – key to impressionism. Notice the visible brushstrokes in rendering the water, suggesting movement, light reflecting, also observe a possible labor division implied by the fisherman and seated woman: How does labor structure leisure here? Editor: I see two solitary figures, positioned on opposite sides. It creates a beautiful visual rhyme. Water nymphs maybe, or perhaps echoes of classical Arcadia transformed into a contemporary, more introspective, vision? What strikes me are those cloud formations – like emotional weather systems hovering above. What do you suppose they would mean? Curator: They provide evidence for the actual environment as well, wind that might effect brushstroke choices, dust that might bind into the paint. Romanticism loved finding these intense sensations that were only reproducible via human processes; there is something so physical here too. Editor: I think so too: The broken tree is an interesting detail that speaks of fragility and passing. It lends a quality to a landscape: something not idyllic or conventionally beautiful, something perhaps… temporal, ruined almost. Curator: How true – let's see the symbolism for those people then; their scale and lack of specific character speaks perhaps to this transience of man, placed next to such ancient processes that continue on without end in landscape art. But do you notice the colors here – see the alizarin crimson bleeding through on both figures – suggesting a kind of link or possible prefiguration? Editor: The color hints really bind those disparate figures across this verdant, lush space that is still subject to time; their clothes fade to brown, their thoughts unknown... Thanks for offering a compelling viewpoint. Curator: And thank you! By inspecting these artworks from different view points we discover additional meanings they were always set to give away!