United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is perfectly plain that Meissonier was not especially enamoured of beauty, as Corot, as Troyon, as Decamps was.
They could paint their gummy tapestry stuff anywhere. 'I can imagine your asking them what they thought of Corot. Their faces would assume a puzzled expression, I can see them scratching their heads reflectively; at last one of them would say: "Yes, there is Chose who lives behind the Odeon he admires Corot. Pas de blague, he really does."
James's Park sky lacked the refined concentration of light in "The Ravine," so beautifully placed, low down in the picture, behind some dark branches jutting from the right. The difference between Nature and Corot is as great as the difference between a true and a false Corot. Not that there is anything untrue in Nature, only Nature lacks humanity self!
"My dear Mrs. Witherspoon!" he exclaimed crisply. "I am really delighted to see you. It was quite charming of you to give me this week-end." "Adorable of you to ask me Mr. Hepplewhite!" returned the lady. "I've been looking forward to this visit for weeks. What a sweet room? Is that a Corot?" "Yes yes!" murmured her host modestly. "Rather nice, I think, eh?
Accordingly the Patron's rhapsodies fell on impatient ears, and when he continued his importunities over the Scotch woodcock and ale, the Painter was impelled to express the sense of the meeting. "Speaking of Corot," he began genially, "there are certain misapprehensions about him which I am fortunately able to clear up. People imagine, for instance, that he haunted the woods about Ville d'Avray.
But, Edge, given the exact light that her beauty needs, she is a masterpiece. In some strange way her personality has given me a new pleasure in Corot and Diaz. It is difficult to explain, but it is so. I feel my powers of description are inadequate really to picture Elise to you. She is truly feminine, and yet when she is with other women her unique gift of personality makes them merely feminine.
The old masters in the Louvre, even the yearly Salons, where, under my father's guidance, I had learned to admire Troyon, Corot, and Millet, had given me an education which fell short of enabling me to recognize the merits of the new school.
Lovers sit on the grassy banks, children roll among the leaves, sylphs dance in every open, and out from between the branches lightly steps Orpheus, harp in hand, to greet the morn. Never is there a shadow of care in a Corot all is mellow with love, ripe with the rich gift of life, full of prayer and praise just for the rapture of drinking in the day grateful for calm, sweet rest and eventide.
Millet's work must be considered later in these papers, but it is useful here to make this passing comment, that with Corot he represents what is best in our modern art; that the greatest quality of our modern art is its steadfast reliance on nature; and that, paradoxical as it may seem, they are alike in taking only that from nature which is serviceable to the clarity of their expression, being in this both at odds with the common practice of modern painting, which usually adopts a more servile attitude towards nature.
Yet when her eye rested on the Corot, Madeleine's only pride, she was evidently perplexed, and resorted to eye-glasses, in order, as it seemed, to gain time for reflection. But she was not to be disconcerted even by Corot's masterpiece: "How pretty! Japanese, isn't it? Sea-weeds seen through a fog. I went to an auction yesterday, and do you know I bought a tea-pot with a picture just like that."
Word Of The Day