The Barbizon School - And 19th Century French Landscape Painting

United in their opposition to classical convention and by a common interest in landscape painting for its own sake, the otherwise disparate group of painters who took their name from the small village of Barbizon, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, were to become a prime force in the development of nineteenth-century French landscape painting.

In this superbly illustrated work, Jean Bouret traces the historical background of the school, from the early influence of the Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century and the work of Constable and Bonington in England, to the emotive paintings of Georges Michel. The leading personalities of the Barbizon School were Rousseau, Corot, Daubigny, Diaz and Dupré all painters of distinctive style who chose the tranquillity of the Forest of Fontainebleau to produce some of their finest work. Their feeling for nature, amounting almost to a cult, may be regarded as a form of Romantic revolt from the drabness of urban life, and coincided with a reaming among town-dwellers to renew their contact with nature.

The example of the painters of Barbizon was to be followed by the Impressionists. Monet, Sisley, Seurat, Cezanne and Bazille all worked for a time in or around Fontainebleau, and Van Gogh copied several of Millet's sketches adding his own unmistakable touches. The importance of the Barbizon School in the evolution of nineteenth-century French landscape painting cannot be underestimated.