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 Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and John Henry Twachtman Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot is one of the most important landscape painters of the 19th century. His early work followed in the footsteps of neo-classical painters, who found inspiration in Italy's grand landscape tradition. Following studies in Rome, Corot returned to France, where his attention turned to the local landscape. Painting outdoors, he chose his subjects from the forests and towns around Paris. He quickly earned a reputation as the poet of landscape painting, inspiring generations of artists both in France and abroad. This canvas is typical of Corot's mature work, which finds beauty in the humble details of the artist's here and now. The delicate tone unifies the composition, yet is also evocative of the moist breeze and changing light of a dewy morning.
Click on an image to see a larger version.
While John Henry Twachtman's early work is dominated by his studies at the Royal Academy in Munich and time he spent
painting in the Bavarian countryside, his art also combined many of the influences and styles available to a young
artist working in America in the 1870s; it was a mixture of Hudson River School and the plein-air painting of
Barbizon and the School of the Hague. Following his move to New York City in 1878, Twachtman, along with many of his
colleagues in the Society of American Painters, elected to distance himself from the grand and picturesque style of
painting that dominated America at that time. He simplified his artistic vision and, like the painters of Barbizon,
looked to beauty in his immediate surroundings, producing intimate portraits of the local landscape.
Such is the case with The Shore, a view of the Green Street Boat Basin in Jersey City, New Jersey. This innovative
view of a landscape is neither city nor country. The dark tones, high viewpoint, and cropped composition deny the
picturesque aspects of the scene, and amplify the sense of a specific place and time. The paint is freely applied
with broad gestural strokes that reflect the haphazard, random arrangement of an unplanned community.
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