Noonday

1807–1812 · Education

Lycée Pierre-Corneille

1822

His father consents to an artist's career

At 26 Corot won his father's consent to adopt the profession of art; he later recalled telling his father that business and he were simply incompatible and that he was getting a divorce.

1825–1828

First trip to Italy

With his parents' support Corot went to Italy to study the Renaissance masters and draw the crumbling monuments of antiquity; his parents' condition was that he paint a self-portrait for them, his first. In three years he completed over 200 drawings and 150 paintings, worked and travelled with several young French painters, and spent most of his time around Rome and in the Italian countryside.

1827

Salon debut: “View at Narni”

In 1827 Corot sent his first painting to the Salon, “View at Narni”. He transformed a quick study of a ruined Roman aqueduct in bright sun into an idyllic pastoral setting with giant shade trees and green lawns, a conversion meant to appeal to the Neoclassical jurors.

1835

A sensation at the Salon: “Hagar in the Wilderness”

In 1835 Corot created a sensation at the Salon with his biblical painting “Hagar in the Wilderness”, showing Hagar and the child Ishmael dying of thirst until saved by an angel; his bold, fresh statement of the Neoclassical ideal succeeded with the critics. The biblical and mythological subjects that followed did not succeed as well, as the critics found him wanting in comparison with Poussin.

22 February 1875

Died