Mixwell Library › Corot on Painting
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) · translated by English versions as printed by Everard Meynell (d. 1926), David Croal Thomson (d. 1930) and Robert J. Wickenden (d. 1931) · 34 chapters · public domain · plain text
Corot’s own words on how to paint, gathered from early English books about him: form and values first, big masses, and when to stop. Reports by people who watched him work are labelled as such.
Nothing in this book mentions that.
Reflexions sur la Peinture
les deux premières choses à étudier—c'est la forme puis les valeurs
ces deux choses sont pour moi les points d'appui et sérieuses dans l'art
la couleur et l'exécution mettront le charme dans l'œuvre.
He would say to his pupils, "If before nature God does not speak to you, it means that your hour has not yet come or that you have mistaken your way. Go and search elsewhere." "In an artist's career, conscience is necessary, confidence also in himself, and perseverance. So armed, the two things in my estimation of the greatest importance are: severe study in drawing and in learning values in painting." Such were his favourite sayings, and we may conclude by quoting an anecdote of a deaf-and-dumb pupil accepted by him in 1865. At the first lesson Corot summed up all his theories in a single word—Conscience—which he underlined three times.
Conscience, ten times underlined, was a word placarded about when he had pupils in his studio. And "Vive la conscience, vive la simplicité!" he shouted at other times for his own comfort.
Other open secrets Corot reveals with all the gusto of discovery. "Never paint," said he, "a subject unless it calls insistently and distinctly upon your eye and heart." Or, "Do not imitate; do not follow others—you will always be behind them"; or, "You must interpret nature with entire simplicity and according to your personal sentiment, altogether detaching yourself from what you know of the old masters or of contemporaries. Only in this way will you do work of real feeling. I know gifted people who will not avail themselves of their power. Such people seem to me like a billiard-player whose adversary is constantly giving him good openings, but who makes no use of them. I think that if I were playing with that man, I would say, 'Very well, then, I will give you no more.' If I were to sit in judgment, I would punish the miserable creatures who squander their natural gifts, and I would turn their hearts to cork."
To a pupil who brought him a study very obviously inspired by himself, he said: "Bring me another like that and I will shut my door upon you for ever."
And the deaf-mute, impressed and obedient, made his copy so faithfully that he included an accidental spot of glue upon the master's canvas. At which the laughing Corot said: "Look as carefully at Nature, and you will find her without stain."
Other instructions, to deaf-mutes and the rest of us, are: "Let your feelings be your only guide. Yet, as we are only simple mortals, we are subject to errors: listen to criticisms, but follow only such as you understand and agree with in sentiment. Fermeté, docilité—follow your convictions. It is better not to exist than to be the echo of other painters. As the wise man says, if one follows, one is behind. Beauty in art is truth bathed in the impression, the emotion, that is received from nature. When the grace and charm of a view strike you, never neglect it. Seek truth and exactitude, but with the envelope of sentiment which you felt at first. If you have been sincere in your emotion, you will be able to pass it on to others." "Art should be an individual expression of the verities, an ardour that concedes nothing."
"Chiqueurs are liars, and liars are the worst of men." This he said to a little boy, drawing under his guidance. A chiqueur is one who draws out of his head when he should be using a model. He confessed to the sin himself, saying to M. Chardin: "One day I allowed myself to do something chic; I did some ornamental thing, letting my brush wander at will. When it was done, I was seized with remorse; I could not close my eyes all night. As soon as it was day, I ran to my canvas and furiously scratched out all the work of the previous evening. As my flourishes disappeared, I felt my conscience grow calmer, and once the sacrifice was accomplished I breathed freely, for I felt myself rehabilitated in my own sight."
"An artist need not be born a genius; he need not even become a very skilful executant; anybody can take count of the proportion of forms and the relation of colours one to another. Even dressmakers do not fail in their assortments; there is at my sister's house at Ville d'Avray a garden-woman who makes beautiful bouquets; she could teach the laws of harmony to many of our celebrated painters."
"I pray God every day," he said, "that He will keep me a child; that is to say that He will enable me to see and draw with the eye of a child."
"After my excursions," said he, "I invite friend Nature to spend a few days under my roof; and, she there, my fantasy begins. Brush in hand, I go forth into the woods of my studio; I hear birds sing there, and the trees rustle in a phantom wind; I see streams flowing, and my rivers are charged with a thousand reflections of the sky and of everything upon their banks; the sun sets and rises for me in my home." There is the lover, perfectly constant to his absent mistress. There is the method.
"I look for nothing but Nature," he continues; "I feel stifled by the close skies of Paris."
M. Silvestre tells us yet more of Corot's manner of work, particularly of sketching. "I remember," he writes, "the making of a very beautiful study in a quarter of an hour at Fontainebleau: the sun is setting behind a lofty wood; a stream of light, in strong contrast to the dark foliage, stretches from the foot of the trees to the horizon. 'I will make a picture from this,' Corot told me, 'but, strictly speaking, I have no need for it. When I am asked for a replica of a landscape I can make it without looking at the original. I keep copies of my works in my heart and in my eyes. A landscape painter should be able to paint a country masterpiece without leaving Montmartre.'"
"I never hurry to the details of a picture: its masses and general character interest me before everything else. When those are well established I search out the subtleties of form and colour. Incessantly and without system I return to any and every part of my canvas."
In one of his sketch-books he wrote during a moment of self-examination: "I am never in a hurry to arrive at details; the masses and the character of a picture interest me before all else:... when these are well established I seek for the finer qualities of form and color. I return to these unceasingly, without being stopped by anything, and without system."
"It is useful to put your vigorous touches on at the end like Rembrandt, who, having given a high finish underneath, applied great strokes of the brush above to give the admired look of solidity and energy. Put in as much as you like at first, and afterwards efface the superfluity."
It is good to be able to steal for our own palettes the advice given to Dutilleux in 1849: "As far as I know, cadmium and antimony are good and lasting colours. I always use them and am always satisfied. As for yellow lake, I have a passion for it. Only I think it is most suitable for glazing. Laque Robert is considered to be firmer."
"Two men stop to talk together: I pencil them in detail, beginning at the head, for example; they separate, and I have nothing but a fragment on my paper. Some children are sitting on the steps of a church; I begin, their mother calls them; my sketch-book becomes filled with tips of noses and locks of hair. I make a resolution not to go home without a whole figure, and I try for the first time to draw in mass, to draw rapidly, which is the only possible way of drawing, and which is to-day one of the chief faculties of our moderns. I put myself to draw in the winking of an eye the first group that presents itself; if it moves on I have at least put down the general character; if it stops, I can go on to the details. I do many such exercises, and have even gone so far as to cover the lining of my hat with lightning sketches of opera-ballets and opera scenery."
"I had passed two winters with Monsieur Bertin, learning so little that soon after my arrival at Rome I could hardly pull through the slightest drawing. Two men would stop to chat; I would begin to sketch them in parts, commencing with the head, for example. Then they would separate and I had only pieces of head on my paper. Some children were seated on the steps of a church; I commenced again; their mother called them. My book was thus filled with ends of noses, foreheads and locks of hair. I then determined not to return home without a completed work, and I tried for the first time to draw by masses, rapid drawing, the only kind possible. I commenced by circumscribing in the twinkling of an eye the first group that came: if it rested but a short time in place, I had at least caught the character, the general outlines; if they remained longer, I was able to add the details. I did very many of these exercises and now find myself able to catch in a few lines the ballets and decorations of the Opera on a piece of paper in the crown of my hat."
Corot, on his way to fetch his own easel, passed by one at which a painter, in haste to catch the later afternoon effect, was scattering his paint upon his canvas. Corot came, but, seeing the hopelessness of the methodless mess before him, said, "Friend, you go too quickly; your study has no basis of drawing; you will never get it to rights." The painter, turning round upon the speaker and seeing a blue blouse and a country face, shrugged his shoulders and continued his misfortunate labours. An hour later the sun has set; he sits melancholy before his spoilt study; the blue blouse reappears, and a voice says, "Eh bien, you see now; Corot wasn't wrong."
A. Marx, in Le Figaro,* set down a very interesting conversation he had with Corot, giving a valuable account of his method of working. It may be freely rendered thus:—"People are surprised that painters should know what effect will be produced by colours some yards off, although they are painted without the artist going any distance away." "Yes," Corot said, "that is entirely learnt by experience. When a youngster commences to paint he makes a daub, and then he walks back from his easel in order to judge of the effect of the mess some yards off. Then he returns and seats himself again and tries new tones and colours; then back he goes again, and again returns, and so on until the picture is finished. My first pictures have caused me to take so many paces backwards and forwards, that each one represents over a hundred miles. Then, getting accustomed to painting, I gradually changed my method, and, of course, went a less number of kilometres for each. To-day my hand acts almost always just as I want it to do, and indeed, I could mention certain pictures which truly I never really saw until they had been signed, framed, and paid for."
Again he said: "At first I often felt sorely tried when, wishing to paint a sky from nature, I found the clouds stealing off too quickly. 'Stop!' said I, trying to do as Joshua did with the sun. But Joshua had a command over the firmament which very evidently I had not. My clouds continued to drive along, the sky changing in colour and form, and setting me at defiance by the metamorphosis. One morning, in my vexation, I went to them, calling, 'Nom d'une pipe, remain there for a minute before me, for I do not want to paint you wrongly.' It is with shame that I confess these memories, for a sky standing still is not a sky at all. The talent of the painter consists rightfully in rendering the changing tints and majestic movements of the luminous masses in light or shade which float in the atmosphere, driven gently or strongly by the strength of the wind. And we have a proof of this in that we feel pleased when a connoisseur says to us when we direct attention to the clouds in our canvases, 'Mes compliments, your clouds move well.'"
Corot's own authentic account of the end of his day was, "I must stop: my Heavenly Father has put out the lamp"; and of twilight he said: "Ah! how difficult some colours are to define at this time. We can all name the two tints in the sky, the one yellow, the other lilac. The bushes and the lawn are green, anybody can see. But that great sombre space there, what is its exact colour? Only the cunning catch it, and the credit."
"I only saw Corot once," writes Mr. George Moore in Modern Painting. "It was in the woods near Paris, where I had gone to paint, and I came across the old gentleman unexpectedly in front of his easel in a pleasant glade. After admiring his work I ventured to say: 'What you are doing is lovely, but I cannot find your composition in the landscape before us.' He said, 'My foreground is a long way ahead.' And sure enough, nearly two hundred yards away, his picture rose out of the dimness of the dell, stretching a little beyond the vista into the meadow."
Not being witty as Whistler, Corot looked upon his canvas with some scruple. "It is not possible that I have earned so large a sum in so short a time," thought he; "I must work longer on it; no, I may spoil it if I touch. I will light my pipe and look at the sky instead."
He was at least no dealers' painter when he wrote: "I must always paint landscape as it is. The dealers can wait till doomsday for a change in my manner."
"In scheming out my pictures I had evolved," said he, "a mother full of despairs; I then took for my model a girl who thought of nothing but her lovers while she posed, and my Hagar's head, snapped up out of my imagination, and set down in haste, grew visibly feebler—an operatic mask—while I worked."
One day somebody criticised her ways. "But it is precisely her mobility I like," said the master. "I am not one of your specialists in little bits. My endeavour is to express life. I need a model who moves."
Three weeks before his death he said to Robaut: "You have no idea of the things I could paint now. I see what I have never seen before. It seems to me that I could never before have been able to make a sky. That which is before me is much rosier, profounder, more transparent. Ah, if I could show you these immense horizons!"
It was about the time Corot became acquainted with his friends at Arras that he drew up his Principles of Art for his young friends. He wrote:—
"A man should only take up the profession of an artist if he feels within him a strong love of nature, and the capacity to follow the calling with a perseverance that nothing can daunt. He must not thirst for approbation, nor for the making of money. He must not be discouraged by the fault-finding through which others may condemn his work. It is necessary to be armed with the strongest convictions that will enable him to go straight ahead, fearing no obstacles. A man of incessant toil, either as executant, or as observer, and with an invincible conscientiousness. Filled with such conscientiousness it may happen that he will create works where some striking fault may readily be visible to others, but he must go on in his way, for no one becomes an artist in a single day. Let him persevere, his conscientiousness will save him. Does he seem to see things in a wrong way—conscientiously he will soon bring everything into harmony, and in due time he will come closer to nature every day. The important point for him is to paint nothing but what he sees, and in the way he sees it. The only staff he may use from time to time to support him in his march is to give a glance at the works of the best masters, the really great men, such as Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein, Correggio, Titian, Claude Lorraine, Poussin, Le Sueur (sic), Hobbema, Terburg, Metzu, Canaletto. The inspirations received from these, however, should only serve to facilitate the development of his own powers."
It is related that in 1860 he gave some half-serious, half-humorous words of advice to Oudinot, one of his followers: "When, par hasard," Corot said, "you find you have put too much colour on any part of the picture, just lift it away with either your finger or your thumb, and the chance may serve you very well."
Corot painted the trees in a way, as he used to say himself, "that the birds may easily pass through"; the leafy branches are seldom so thickly crowded together that the birds of the forest may not pierce their way in.
"If I sing," said Corot, "it is because I feel as happy as a little bird. I have perfect happiness when I am with Nature, palette in hand. I try to do my best honestly and conscientiously, and, if I make a mistake, I harm only myself; and then I say to myself that another time I will be more fortunate. It is not worth while to be always morose and discontented with oneself, like poor Fleury: the painting shows it."
To the student of art it is peculiarly interesting to know about Corot's technical methods of painting, and, fortunately, something of these has been recorded in a series of interesting statements made by Corot to a pupil, which are recorded in M. P. Burty's brief but charming introductory note to the catalogue of the Corot Exhibition, 1875. Corot appears always to have painted on canvas fastened on keyed stretchers, not strained too tightly, and also not covered with any heavy preparation which would make them easily crack—half-primed canvas, English artists would call it. The preparation was sometimes lightly tinted, and he was always very careful in choosing the finest quality of canvas. Having placed the canvas on the easel, Corot seized a piece of white crayon, and, after pausing a moment to consider his subject, he traced with peculiar masterliness and facility the chief masses of the composition. This outline at once became understandable to the onlooker, and from this the artist scarcely deviated in his finished picture, except to fill in details. From this first idea he himself used to foretell the fortunes of the subject. "Look there," said he, "something which shall yet be famous," and then leaving this canvas, to vegetate as it were, he would go to another, or carry forward a third, or complete a fourth, just as he felt inclined.
First ideas were only taken up again after undergoing a certain period of incubation. They were then put once more on the easel to receive the first painting or the sketch of the subject in oil colours. Armed with an ordinary palette, not very carefully arranged, and composed of decided colours, without half-tints, furnished with brushes strong and supple, the painter laid in his groundwork with raw umber, with black and white heightened by raw and burnt sienna and other scientifically good ochres; never, be it observed, with bitumen of any kind. Thus the first plan of his pictures was settled from the point of view of the values and the effect required, by fixing from the first on two extremes—the greatest light and the greatest dark. He emphasized also the principal masses with a firmness sometimes approaching violence, which he toned down afterwards with light transparent colours.
After this the canvas was again put away. Then, when the first painting had become solid enough to be worked upon, the artist sought to produce the complete harmony of his subject by transparent and semi-transparent colours.
His method of sketching is further described by M. Silvestre from observation: "If Corot sees two clouds that at first sight appear to be equally dark he will, before building up the whole harmony of his picture on one or other of them, apply himself to discover the difference he knows must exist. Then, when he has decided on the darkest as well as the lightest tone in the scene before him, the intermediate values readily take their places, and subdivide themselves indefinitely before his discerning eyes. These values, from the most positive to the most vague, call to one another and give answer, like echo and voice. When the artist sees he can divide the principal values of the landscape before him into four, he does so by numbering the different parts of his rough sketch from 1 to 4, 4 standing for the darkest and 1 for the lightest patch, while the intermediate tones are represented by 2 and 3. This method enables Corot, with the help of any old pencil and any scrap of paper, to make records of the most transitory effects seen upon a journey. Corot was not a man to make an inventory of his sentiments, and the fact that he made such records proves that they were sufficient for his own purposes. As a rule he first of all puts in his sky, then the more important masses in the middle of the composition, then those to the left and to the right; he then picks out the forms of the reflections in the water, if there is water, and so establishes the planes of his picture, his masses falling in one behind the other while one watches him. Sometimes he proceeds in a less orderly way; for it goes without saying that his methods are the methods of freedom, and not the invariable recipes of a pedant. He takes in, at a glance, the form, the colour, and the movement of his models, and runs an unquiet eye over every part of the canvas before putting a touch in place, sure that it does no violence to the general effect. If he makes haste he may become clumsy and rough, leaving here and there inequalities of impasto. These he afterwards removes with a razor, as if he were shaving his landscape, and leaving himself free to profit by such accidents of surface as are happy in effect."