Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Clouds

"Les Contrebandiers" by Corot

"There seems to have been no serious cloud upon Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's life until the fatal year when France was slaughtered [the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71]. Then he said he should have gone mad had he not had the refuge of his easel. It was not only wrong but stupid to kill people and destroy the grace of nature and the works of man. 'Compare the savage hate of war with art, which at the bottom means simply love!' he exclaimed. 

Yet with the instinct of a patriot he came back to Paris when the siege seemed certain, and gave with a very generous hand not only to relieve the sick but 'to drive the Prussians out of the woods of Ville d'Avray.' His brush and his summer memories filled part of his time, and the rest was spent among the poor and suffering. During the whole siege he ministered and worked, and some of his loveliest pictures date from these dreary weeks.

When they were shown in 1874 he narrowly missed, for the second time, the grand medal of honor. But a better reward came to him in a letter from a group of artists saying that after all 'the greatest honor is to be called Corot.' And soon after the same impulse found still more emphatic expression. A gold medal was subscribed for by a long list of artists and amateurs and presented to the venerable master. When he read its inscription, 'To Corot, his brethren and admirers,' he could only whisper through deep emotion, 'It makes one very happy to be loved like this' - this was the last day he was seen in public, and even then he was nervous, ill, and feeble."

To be continued

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