Barbizon school
Encyclopedia
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon
Barbizon
Barbizon is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest.-Art history:The Barbizon school of painters is named after the village; Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, leaders of the school, made their homes and died in the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, near Fontainebleau Forest
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...
, where the artists gathered.
In 1824 the Salon de Paris
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
exhibited works of John Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became the subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events.
During the Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
artists gathered at Barbizon to follow Constable's ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings.
One of them, Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
, extended the idea from landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
to figures — peasant figures, scenes of peasant life, and work in the fields. In The Gleaners
The Gleaners
The Gleaners is an oil painting by Jean-François Millet completed in 1857. It depicts three peasant women gleaning a field of stray grains of wheat after the harvest...
(1857), Millet portrays three peasant women working at the harvest. There is no drama and no story told, merely three peasant women in a field.
Gleaners are poor women gathering what's left after the rich owners of the field finished harvesting. The owners and their laborers are seen in the back of the painting. Millet here shifted the focus, the subject matter, from the rich and prominent to those at the bottom of the social ladders. Millet also didn't paint their faces to emphasize their anonymity and marginalized position. Their bowed bodies are representative of their every day hard work.
The leaders of the Barbizon school were Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau
Théodore Rousseau
Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau , French painter of the Barbizon school, was born in Paris, of a bourgeois family.-Youth:At first he received a business training, but soon displayed aptitude for painting...
, Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...
and Charles-François Daubigny
Charles-François Daubigny
Charles-François Daubigny was one of the painters of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of Impressionism....
; other members included Jules Dupré
Jules Dupré
Jules Dupré , French painter, was one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of her tragic and dramatic aspects.Dupré exhibited first at the Salon in 1831, and...
, Constant Troyon
Constant Troyon
Constant Troyon , French painter, was born in Sèvres, near Paris, where his father was connected with the famous manufactory of porcelain....
, Charles Jacque
Charles Jacque
Charles-Emile Jacque was a French painter of animals and engraver who was, with Jean-François Millet, part of the Barbizon School...
, Narcisse Virgilio Diaz
Narcisse Virgilio Díaz
Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña was a French painter of the Barbizon school.Diaz was born in Bordeaux to Spanish parents. At the age of ten, Diaz became an orphan, and misfortune dogged his early years. His foot was bitten by a reptile in Meudon wood, near Sèvres, where he had been taken to live...
, Pierre Emmanuel Damoye
Pierre Emmanuel Damoye
Pierre Emmanuel Damoye was French artist born in Paris on February 20, 1847. He studied his craft at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and went on to become a renown and influential landscape artist noted for his sweeping skies, tree studded-plains, and vibrant farmlands...
, Charles Olivier de Penne, Henri Harpignies
Henri Harpignies
Henri-Joseph Harpignies was a French landscape painter of the Barbizon school.He was born at Valenciennes. His parents intended for him to pursue a business career, but his determination to become an artist was so strong that it conquered all obstacles, and he was allowed at the age of...
, Gabriel-Hippolyte Lebas (1812-1880), Albert Charpin
Albert Charpin
Albert Charpin, born in Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes in 1842, died in Asnières-sur-Seine in 1924. He was a naturalist painter. He painted real objects in a natural setting. Albert Charpin, born in Grasse, Alpes-Maritimes in 1842, died in Asnières-sur-Seine in 1924. He was a naturalist painter. He...
, Félix Ziem
Félix Ziem
Félix Ziem was a French painter in the style of the Barbizon School.Born Félix-Francois Georges Philibert Ziem in Beaune in the Côte-d'Or département of the Burgundy région of France, his mother was a native of Burgundy who married a Croatian immigrant...
, François-Louis Français
François-Louis Français
François Louis Français , French painter, was born at Plombières-les-bains , and, on attaining the age of fifteen, was placed as office-boy with a bookseller....
, Emile van Marcke
Emile van Marcke
Emile van Marcke was a French cattle painter, born at Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine.He studied under Troyon at Barbizon. He received the cross of the Legion of Honor in 1872 and a gold medal at the Paris exhibition...
and Alexandre Defaux
Alexandre DeFaux
thumb|The Bazaar, 1856, oil on canvas laid on board.Alexandre Defaux was a French artist. He was born in Bercy and studied under Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot...
.
Both Rousseau (1867) and Millet (1875) died at Barbizon.
See also
- Gustave CourbetGustave CourbetJean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
- Jean-Baptiste-Camille CorotJean-Baptiste-Camille CorotJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
- Karl BodmerKarl BodmerKarl Bodmer was a Swiss painter of the American West. He accompanied German explorer Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied from 1832 through 1834 on his Missouri River expedition...
- Hippolyte BoulengerHippolyte BoulengerHippolyte Emmanuel Boulenger was a Belgian landscape painter influenced by the French Barbizon school, considered to be "the Belgian Corot".-Biography:...
- Nicolae GrigorescuNicolae GrigorescuNicolae Grigorescu was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.-Biography:He was born in Pitaru, Dâmboviţa County, Wallachia. In 1843 the family moved to Bucharest. At a young age , he became an apprentice at the workshop of the painter Anton Chladek and created icons for the church of...
- H. I. MarlattHamilton Irving MarlattHamilton Irving Marlatt was an American born painter from Rochester, New York well known in the region for his many depictions of the American Southwest. He also painted many watercolors and pastels of scenes from upstate New York...
- Adolphe Joseph Thomas MonticelliAdolphe Joseph Thomas MonticelliAdolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli was a French painter of the generation preceding the Impressionists.-Biography:Monticelli was born in Marseille in humble circumstances...
- American Barbizon schoolAmerican Barbizon schoolThe American Barbizon School was a group of painters and style partly influenced by the French Barbizon school. American Barbizon artists concentrated on painting rural landscapes often including peasants or farm animals....
- Art colonyArt colonyright|300px|thumb|Artist houses in [[Montsalvat]] near [[Melbourne, Australia]].An art colony or artists' colony is a place where creative practitioners live and interact with one another. Artists are often invited or selected through a formal process, for a residency from a few weeks to over a year...
- Naturalism (art)Naturalism (art)Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...
- landscape artLandscape artLandscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
- MacchiaioliMacchiaioliThe Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, did much of their painting outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour...