Arleux-Palluel, The Bridge of Trysts by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
If you like quality then you will like Arleux-Palluel by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. This wonderful Barbizon painting is beautifully detailed and filled with imagery.
Corot is one of the leading member of the Barbizon School and his works are much sought after, the reasons why are clear. Corot offers us the finest in rural artwork, he is a master of the pallet and knows how to use his brush to get the demanding details that his client’s expected of him.
Looking at Arleux-Palluel you will see a scene of five peasant girls at leisure in a field not far from the farm-house (you know that this is the farm-house because of it’s size and the shape of the roof). The farm-house is really in a second view in this painting and out-of-the-way. The focus here is with the peasants in the small field before us.
I would like to point out the tones in the piece that make it successful. First, take note of the dark tones of blue and green that make up the woods behind the girl carrying the straw. This dark tone is the anchor of the painting and without it the painting would fail. This darkness is needed to support the “stage action” of the peasant in the front field. The two other dark spot in the painting are on the very lower right and the not so lower left. The reason for this is to bring depth of field to the scene and at the same time provide a dramatic element needed to draw interest in the work. The grass below the girl carrying the straw is crucial for this puts the grass on the plane that the girls have gathered on and it also provides an accent to the dark tone adjacent to it.
The light blue used for the sky is meant to put the scene in place and set the farm in the distance for a point of reference. The sky is really getting ready for sunset which is the most popular time of day for Barbizon artists. This is evident by his painting the sky it’s lightest tones near the horizon and as you move your eye upward the tone gets darker, ever so slightly. If it were noon the entire sky would be bright.
The handling of the brush strokes are the greatest strength in the painting, the scene is almost ethereal. Corot know exactly how to place each stroke so as to make everything fall together and be light and fresh. Even at the darkest points in the painting there in no sense brooding, on the contrary the feeling here is light and cheerful.
jeans blue
