Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Quotes on Landscape Painting

"The Ponds of Ville d'Avray" by Corot

• "You know, a landscape painter’s day is delightful. You get up early, at three o’clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon . . . Ah, a first ray of sunshine! (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -"The whole landscape lies behind the transparent gauze of the fog that now rises, drawn upwards by the sun, and as it rises, reveals the silver-spangled river, the fields, the cottages, the further scene. At last one can discern all that one could only guess at before . . . The sun is up! There is a peasant at the end of the field, with his wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen . . . Everything is bursting into life, sparkling in the full light – light, which as yet is still soft and golden. The background, simple in line and harmonious in colour, melts into the infinite expanse of sky, through the bluish, misty atmosphere. The flowers raise their heads the birds flutter hither and thither.. ..The little rounded willows on the bank of the stream look like birds spreading their tails. It’s adorable! And one paints! And paints!"
  
  (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -Corot, as quoted in "Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock,” Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963
  
  
• "I have learned from experience that it is useful to begin by drawing one’s picture clearly on a virgin canvas, first having noted the desired effect on a white or gray paper, and then to do the picture section by section, as immediately finished as one can, so that when it has all been covered there is very little to retouch. I have noticed that whatever is finished at one sitting is fresher, better drawn, and profits more from many lucky accidents, while when one retouches this initial harmonious glow is lost. I think that this method is particularly good for foliage, which needs a good deal of freedom."
  
  (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -Corot, as quoted in "Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock,” Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963