1858
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Group of Trees is a 1858 by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a cluster of trees in soft, hazy light. The trunks lean slightly, their leaves sketched in quick, feathery strokes. Corot made this as a *cliché-verre*—a print from a drawing on glass. It’s like a quick photo negative, letting him work fast and loose. The result feels fresh, almost like a sketch, but it’s a finished print. To see more of this light, loose style, look up *sfumato*.
The purest expression of the pastoral in French landscape in the mid-19th century may be found in the work of Corot. In the cliché-verre prints that he created between 1854 and 1874, Corot took advantage of the spontaneity of this simple process. Drawing directly on a glass plate coated with collodion, and then printing it like a photographic negative, Corot developed a loose, free style of draftsmanship that was unparalleled in his painting. Prints such as these were made purely for his own pleasure and were not intended for sale. Graceful, fluid lines flow from tree to tree and from tree to…
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot introduced the cliché-verre technique to other artists working in an artists' colony at the forest of Fontainebleau, outside Paris.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (UK: KORR-oh, US: kə-ROH, kor-OH; French: ; 16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot, was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching.
See the richer artist page
