Camille Corot: From Merchant to Artist

"View of Florence from the Boboli Gardens"
by Camille Corot

"Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was born in Paris in the year 1796. His father, a native of Rouen, had been a hairdresser, but, marrying a milliner, transferred his talents to her service, and in their little shop on the Rue du Bac, gradually amassed a snug bit of a fortune. Camille studied at a school in Rouen, where he remained seven years and gained the whole of his education. From school he went to a cloth merchant's shop and here eight years were passed. Then his love for art broke through the uncongenial tie.

While at Rouen his holidays had been spent with an old friend of his father's in long walks beside the borders of the Seine; and later he found solace in summer days at Ville d'Avray where his people had a little country home. A love for nature was thus gradually fostered in a soul which by birth was peculiarly receptive; and we read of long night-watches at his bedroom window filled with vague poetic musings, visions of nymphs, and aspirations towards some more congenial tool than the yardstick. Indeed, the brush was soon the yardstick's rival. 

An easel was set up in the humble bedroom. A sketchbook was always in hand outdoors; and lithographic stones and sheets of scribbled paper strewed the merchant's counter, underneath which they retired with Corot during the pause between one customer and the next. A casual acquaintance with the young painter Michallon brought about the crisis long deferred by Camille's sweet and docile temper. The tale is the old one of loud parental opposition, but it is not followed by the usual sequel of lasting bitterness. When once convinced that there was nothing else to do, Corot's father made a rather sharp bargain with his son, 'If you insist upon painting you will have no capital to dispose of as long as I live. I will make you a pension of fifteen hundred francs. Don't count upon ever having more, but see whether you can pull yourself through with that.' And for thirty years Camille lived on his three hundred annual dollars and was one of the happiest mortals in Paris.""

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.)