.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
The landscape sketches executed on paper by Corot during his first trip to Italy are considered of seminal importance in the development of French landscape painting, and marked the culmination of a tradition of working en plein-air begun some 30 years earlier by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes in the Roman campagna. Consisting of almost 200 small-format paintings executed on the spot in Rome and the surrounding countryside, this body of work is considered the crucial link with the younger generation of artists who would go on to form the Barbizon School and, later, the Impressionist movement.
Corot's oil sketches were largely personal études, unsigned and, like the present work, kept by the artist until his death. They purposefully avoided the picturesque to concentrate instead on effects of light and colour, and to provide a quick and immediate impression which could serve as the starting point for a more elaborate picture if necessary. Here, Corot's main concern seems to have been to capture the volume of the huge rocks and the fleeting colours of the evening sky.
The present work was executed on one of several trips made by Corot to the Alban Hills. These trips were often made in the company of fellow artists such Caruelle d'Aligny and Léopold Robert, but it was unusual for the artist to include such companions in his paintings. The juxtaposition of man and nature in such works, common in similar sketches by Corot's Nordic contemporaries suchas Johan Christian Dahl, lends this oil sketch a particularly Romantic atmosphere, contrasting the tiny, dotted figures, against the vastness of their natural surroundings.
Corot's oil sketches were largely personal études, unsigned and, like the present work, kept by the artist until his death. They purposefully avoided the picturesque to concentrate instead on effects of light and colour, and to provide a quick and immediate impression which could serve as the starting point for a more elaborate picture if necessary. Here, Corot's main concern seems to have been to capture the volume of the huge rocks and the fleeting colours of the evening sky.
The present work was executed on one of several trips made by Corot to the Alban Hills. These trips were often made in the company of fellow artists such Caruelle d'Aligny and Léopold Robert, but it was unusual for the artist to include such companions in his paintings. The juxtaposition of man and nature in such works, common in similar sketches by Corot's Nordic contemporaries suchas Johan Christian Dahl, lends this oil sketch a particularly Romantic atmosphere, contrasting the tiny, dotted figures, against the vastness of their natural surroundings.