.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Marino, grandes fabriques au sommet des rochers was painted on Corot's first trip to Italy. The village of Marino is located fourteen miles south of Rome, between the Via Appia and the Via Latina in the region known as the Castelli Romani, not far from Lake Albano. The area is notable for its topography of deep blue lakes and dense forests as well as for its Roman ruins and Renaissance villas. Corot is known to have traveled to this area on four separate occasions between May 1826 and October 1827. Working out of doors, 'Corot used the empirical candor of outdoor painting with the pictorial rigor of the classical tradition. The indivisible collaboration of these qualities is the hallmark of Corot's achievement in Italy' (P. Galassi, Corot in Italy, New Haven, 1991, p. 143).
Working within the framework of a classical landscape tradition, Corot would begin by drawing the rough outline of his subject in pencil on a sheet which he then transferred to a canvas support. Next he would fill in the outlines with a palette of ochres, browns and greens that he applied in patches of interlocking blocks. As Peter Galassi further writes: 'Corot's insistence on the integrity of the painted surface sets him apart from and perhaps ahead of his contemporaries. But his color mosaic is not like the diaphanous field of high Impressionism. Objects proudly retain their tangible identity, and the ordering presence of geometry is always felt' (ibid., p. 158).
We are grateful to Martin Dieterle and Claire Lebeau for confirming the authenticity of this work.
Working within the framework of a classical landscape tradition, Corot would begin by drawing the rough outline of his subject in pencil on a sheet which he then transferred to a canvas support. Next he would fill in the outlines with a palette of ochres, browns and greens that he applied in patches of interlocking blocks. As Peter Galassi further writes: 'Corot's insistence on the integrity of the painted surface sets him apart from and perhaps ahead of his contemporaries. But his color mosaic is not like the diaphanous field of high Impressionism. Objects proudly retain their tangible identity, and the ordering presence of geometry is always felt' (ibid., p. 158).
We are grateful to Martin Dieterle and Claire Lebeau for confirming the authenticity of this work.