Camille Corot (1796-1875) | Paysages / Quotes

• "Set up your study or picture in an orderly fashion. This order should not cramp either the linearist or the colorist... Never lose sight of that first impression by which you were moved. I work on all parts of my painting at once, improving it very gently until I find that the effect is complete".

• ".. (In Italia)…questo sole diffonde una luce disperante per me; sento tutta l'impotenza della mia tavolozza..."
• "Nessuno mi ha mai insegnato: il mio istinto mi spinge e io gli obbedisco".
• "Don't imitate, don't follow the others, or else you will lag behind them".
• "Non imitare, non seguire gli altri, altrimenti resterai indietro".

• "You know, a landscape painter's day is delightful. You get up early, at three o'clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon.. ..Ah, a first ray of sunshine!"

• "In preparing a study or a picture, it seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values... and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades".