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Lot Essay
Robaut states that the present painting was ‘une étude d’après nature terminée plus tard à l’atelier.’ The present painting was begun in the 1850s and Charles Desavary took a photo of the unfinished work in Corot’s studio in 1872 (Robaut 838A, fig. 1). Presumably, it was finished by Corot prior to its sale to Brame. Robaut reproduces a heliogravure by A. Durand of the drawing by Robaut of the finished work which was used in the Hoschedé sale catalogue (Robaut 838B).
There were sixteen paintings by Corot in the Hoschedé sale, along with eleven by Courbet and a version of Millet’s Les glaneuses. This painting is mentioned specifically in a contemporary review of the sale, which was on exhibition in Paris on April 18th and 19th in 1875. Ernest Chesneau writes in the sale catalogue, ‘Nous pouvons suivre le maître, à l’aide de ces douze toiles, dans les plus diverse expressions de son talent, depuis cette oeuvre de haute recherche et de style la Madeleine péntitent, depuis les fortes études du milieu de sa vie au lac Nemi, jusqu’aux adorables élégances qu’il recontrait sur les chemins de France, à Semur, à Givet, et qu’il sut vers la lin trouver partout sous ses pas, autour de lui, en ces douce collines, en ce doux étang de Ville D’Avray, qui éveillaient en lui toujours la même fraîcheur et la même candeur d’impressions’.
Semur, le chemin de l’eglise, as stated above, was begun in the 1850s and finished by Corot in 1872, when the artist was at the height of his powers and considered the patriarch of landscape painting in France. The artist brought twenty years of experience and experimentation in landscape painting to its completion. This is clearly an ‘evening picture,’ with the darkness of nightfall creeping across the the painting, swaddling the lone figure of a peasant woman feeding chickens in the fading light of the day. Although the foreground is executed in an almost monochromatic palette, the sky is spectacularly highlighted by the golden glow of the setting sun which illuminates only the very tops of the trees that define the picture plane. Depth in the painting is deftly created by the placement of the figure in the foreground, the winding steps of the path towards the village defining the middle ground and the architecture of Semur, with its distinctive towers drawing the viewer’s eye into the background and the luminescence of the evening sky. The creation of depth of the painting is further enhanced by the brushwork. Corot uses layers of thinly applied glazes and scumbles of browns, greens, blues and greys and these translucencies create a landscape of surprising complexity which results in the creation of a world of silent peace and serenity.
(fig. 1) Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Semur, Le chemin de l'église, photographed by Ch. Desavary, 1872.
There were sixteen paintings by Corot in the Hoschedé sale, along with eleven by Courbet and a version of Millet’s Les glaneuses. This painting is mentioned specifically in a contemporary review of the sale, which was on exhibition in Paris on April 18th and 19th in 1875. Ernest Chesneau writes in the sale catalogue, ‘Nous pouvons suivre le maître, à l’aide de ces douze toiles, dans les plus diverse expressions de son talent, depuis cette oeuvre de haute recherche et de style la Madeleine péntitent, depuis les fortes études du milieu de sa vie au lac Nemi, jusqu’aux adorables élégances qu’il recontrait sur les chemins de France, à Semur, à Givet, et qu’il sut vers la lin trouver partout sous ses pas, autour de lui, en ces douce collines, en ce doux étang de Ville D’Avray, qui éveillaient en lui toujours la même fraîcheur et la même candeur d’impressions’.
Semur, le chemin de l’eglise, as stated above, was begun in the 1850s and finished by Corot in 1872, when the artist was at the height of his powers and considered the patriarch of landscape painting in France. The artist brought twenty years of experience and experimentation in landscape painting to its completion. This is clearly an ‘evening picture,’ with the darkness of nightfall creeping across the the painting, swaddling the lone figure of a peasant woman feeding chickens in the fading light of the day. Although the foreground is executed in an almost monochromatic palette, the sky is spectacularly highlighted by the golden glow of the setting sun which illuminates only the very tops of the trees that define the picture plane. Depth in the painting is deftly created by the placement of the figure in the foreground, the winding steps of the path towards the village defining the middle ground and the architecture of Semur, with its distinctive towers drawing the viewer’s eye into the background and the luminescence of the evening sky. The creation of depth of the painting is further enhanced by the brushwork. Corot uses layers of thinly applied glazes and scumbles of browns, greens, blues and greys and these translucencies create a landscape of surprising complexity which results in the creation of a world of silent peace and serenity.
(fig. 1) Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Semur, Le chemin de l'église, photographed by Ch. Desavary, 1872.