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Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot ( July 26, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape painter.

Camille Corot was born in Paris, in a house on the Quai by the rue du Bac, now demolished. His family were well-to-do bourgeois people, and whatever may have been the experience of some of his artistic colleagues, he never, throughout his life, felt the want of money. He was educated at Rouen and was afterwards apprenticed to a draper, but hated commercial life and despised what he called its "business tricks," yet he faithfully remained in it until he was twenty-six, wher his father at last consented to his adopting the profession of art.

Corot learned little from his masters. He visited Italy on three occasions: two of his Roman studies are now in the Louvre. He was a regular contributor to the Salon during his lifetime, and in 1846 was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour. He was promoted to be officer in 1867. His many friends considered nevertheless that he was officially neglected, and in 1874, only a short time before his death, they presented him with a gold medal. He died in Paris and was buried at Père Lachaise.

Of the painters classed in the Barbizon school it is probable that Corot will live the longest, and will continue to occupy the highest position. His art is more individual than RousseauPierre Etienne Theodore Rousseau ( April 15, 1812 December 22, 1867), French painter of the Barbizon school, was born in Paris, of a bourgeois family which included one or two artists. At first he received a business training, but soon displayed aptitude's, whose works are more strictly traditional; more poetic than that of DaubignyNadar) Charles-Francois Daubigny ( Paris, February 15 1817 Paris, February 19 1878) was one of the painters of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of impressionism. Daubigny was born in a family of painters and was taught the art, who is, however, Corot's greatest contemporary rival; and in every sense more beautiful than J-F MilletJean-Francois Millet ( October 4, 1814 January 20, 1875) was a painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. He is noted especially for his scenes of peasant farmers. Jean-Francois Millet''Le Semeur (The Sower) Millet was born in, who thought more of stern truth than of aesthetic feeling.

Corot's works are somewhat arbitrarily divided into periods, but the point of division is never certain, as he often completed a picture years after it had been begun. In his first style he painted traditionally and "tight"--that is to say, with minute exactness, clear outlines, and with absolute definition of objects throughout. After his fiftieth year his methods changed to breadth of tone and an approach to poetic power, and about twenty years later, say from 1865 onwards, his manner of painting became full of mystery and poetry. In the last ten years of his work he became the Père Corot of the artistic circles of Paris, in which he was regarded with personal affection, and he was acknowledged as one of the five or six greatest landscape painters the world has ever seen, along with HobbemaMeindert Hobbema (c. 1638 December, 1709), the greatest landscape painter of the Dutch school after Ruysdael, lived at Amsterdam in the second half of the 17th century. The facts of his life are somewhat obscure. Nothing is more disappointing than to find, ClaudeClaude Lorrain ( Lorraine, c 1604 Rome, November 23, 1682) was a French painter considered to be one of the greatest landscape painters. He was born of very poor parents at the village of Chamagne in Lorraine. When it was discovered that he made no progre, Turner and ConstableJohn Constable ( June 11, 1776 March 31, 1837) was born in East Bergholt, a village on the River Stour in Suffolk, England. He became a great landscape painter. The area of Dedham Vale in Suffolk is known as 'Constable Country'. Flatford Mill, the subject.

During the last few years of his life he earned large sums by his pictures, which became greatly sought after. In 1871 he gave £2000 for the poor of Paris (where he remained during the siege), and his continued charity was long the subject of remark. Besides landscapes, of which he painted several hundred, Corot produced a number of figure pictures which are much prized. These were mostly studio pieces, executed probably with a view to keep his hand in with severe drawing, rather than with the intention of producing pictures. Yet many of them are fine in composition, and in all cases the colour is remarkable for its strength and purity. Corot also executed a few etchings and pencil sketches.

In his landscape pictures Corot was more traditional in his method of work than is usually believed. If even his latest tree-painting and arrangement are compared with such a Claude as that which hangs in the Bridgewater gallery, it will be observed how similar is Corot's method and also how masterly are his results.

The works of Corot are scattered over France and the Netherlands, Britain and America. The following may be considered as the first half-dozen: "Une Matinée" (1850), now in the Louvre; "Macbeth" (1859), in the Wallace CollectionThe Wallace Collection is a national art museum located in London, England. It was established from the private collection of Sir Richard Wallace, which was bequeathed to England by his widow in 1897. The museum opened to the public in 1900, in the Hertfo; "Le Lac" (1861); "L'Arbre brisé" (1865); "Pastorale—Souvenir d'Italie" (1873), in the Glasgow Corporation Art Gallery; "Biblis" (1875). Corot had a number of followers who called themselves his pupils. The best known are Boudin, Lepine, Chintreuil, Français and Le Roux.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica