Corot: Women

A new appraisal of intriguing and meditative figural works by one of the 19th century's great masters of landscape

The women painted by Camille Corot (1796-1875) read, dream, and gaze at the viewer, conveying an independent spirit and a sense of their inner lives. Corot's handling of color and his deft, delicate touch applied to the female form resulted in pictures of quiet majesty. Although these figural paintings constitute a relatively small and little-known portion of his oeuvre, they were of great importance for the founders of modernist painting, such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque.

This publication encompasses some forty paintings by Corot--from the single-figure bust and full-length images of the 1840s through the 1860s nudes and his allegorical series devoted to the model in the studio. Essays by leading experts in the field address Corot's debt to the old masters and the impact of his pictures on both 19th- and 20th-century painting, the relationship of his figural work to his more famous landscape practice, his response to the shifting social position of artists' models, and the incursion of photography into artistic practice in the Second Empire and early Third Republic.

Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Exhibition Schedule:

National Gallery of Art, Washington
(09/09/18-12/30/18)

Author: Mary Morton
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 09/25/2018
Pages: 180
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.80lbs
Size: 11.20h x 9.30w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780300236736
ISBN10: 0300236735
BISAC Categories:
- Art | Individual Artists | Monographs
- Art | History | Modern (Late 19th Century to 1945)
- Art | Subjects & Themes | Human Figure

About the Author

Mary Morton is curator and head of the Department of French Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Sébastien Allard is chief curator of the Department of Paintings, Louvre, Paris. Heather McPherson is professor of art and art history, University of Alabama, Birmingham. David Ogawa is associate professor of art history, Union College, Schenectady, NY.