French Landscape

In the middle of the 19th century, a realistic landscape developed in French painting. Landscape artists are not particularly attracted to Paris with its fast pace of life, they want to enjoy peace and quiet and find the village of Barbizon near the forest near the Fontainebleau forest, where they begin to create their masterpieces. Some artists in this village lived and worked only in the warm season, and in winter they returned to the city's comfort. But there were those who remained in the village workshops all year round. They began to be called barbizons (from the name of the village). Many people liked to work early in the morning, when nature only wakes up, keeping its freshness. After, finish the work, went to the workshops. Creating a French landscape of the mid-19th century, artists emphasized the depiction of rural life, writing out forests, rivers, herds of cows, horses, noting the dimensionality and tranquility, the integrity of man and nature. This corresponds to the color scheme: restrained, often monochrome, where brown, brown, green tones correspond. But an important feature of the color range of artists were valery (a subtle difference of the same color in tone, in lightness).

If you ask the question: "Why did the barbizons appear?" - the answer is obvious. In French painting of the early 19th century, the landscape was the background for mythological scenes and characters, often embellished. Barbizontsy showed the world a realistic French landscape of their homeland, where the most common motifs of nature meet, often with the participation of ordinary people engaged in the usual business.

The founder and inspirer of the school was Pierre-Etienne-Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867). His work he dedicates to the image of the nature of France. His paintings, often small in size, are landscapes - moods. An example is his work "Morning in the Forest of Fonteblo". Early morning, in the foreground, an original arch of trees, in the center of the composition of the figure of cows, everything is covered with a pearl silvery haze of morning mist. At first glance, everything is simple, but how many impressions and thoughts.

Still want to highlight the work of the artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, who was close barbizontsev, but creatively walked his own way. He is one of the founders of the national landscape painting school of France of the 19th century. Sometimes he traveled in Barbizon. During his long creative life, he created about three thousand paintings. His landscapes are easy to recognize, once you see them, and you will not be confused with the landscapes of other authors. Air, fluffy trees, as if in a gentle haze, the color scheme is based on a delicate relationship of silvery-gray and pearly-pearly tones. His most famous works are "Voz sena", "Belfry in Argenteuil". Especially I admire his landscape "Ville d'Avre". Pastel gentle colors and fluffy trees create a special atmosphere of early morning air humidity, where a silvery sky reflects in the lake, and the sun gently illuminates the houses. This is the author's country house, the kinds of terrain which he wrote throughout his life.

A wide recognition of the artistic manner Barbizon School received in the 1860s. For these years, and its main flowering. This turned Barbizon into a place of pilgrimage for young artists. The influence of the Barbizon School of Painting is very great for the subsequent development of a realistic landscape not only in France but also in other countries of the world. For example, in Russia - this is the work of artists, the founders of the national lyrical landscape AK. Savrasov (one of the most famous works "The Rooks Have Arrived") and F.A. Vasilyeva (one of the most popular landscapes of the "Wet Meadow"). In the seventies of the nineteenth century, the sunset of the Barbizon School occurred, it gave way to other areas of painting (Impressionism - the creation of an etude in the open air with the subsequent final completion of work in the studio).