than J. F. Millet, who thought more of stern truth than of
aesthetic feeling.

Corot's works are somewhat arbitrarily divided into periods, but the
point of division is never certain, as he often completed a picture
years after it had been begun. In his first style he painted
traditionally and "tight"--that is to say, with minute exactness, clear
outlines, and with absolute definition of objects throughout. After his
fiftieth year his methods changed to breadth of tone and an approach to
poetic power, and about twenty years later, say from 1865 onwards, his
manner of painting became full of "mystery" and poetry. In the last ten
years of his work he became the Pere Corot of the artistic circles of
Paris, in which he was regarded with personal affection, and he was
acknowledged as one of the five or six greatest landscape painters the
world has ever seen, along with Hobbema, Claude, Turner and Constable.
During the last few years of his life he earned large sums by his
pictures, which became greatly sought after. In 1871 he gave L2000 for
the poor of Paris (where he remained during the siege), and his
continued charity was long the subject of remark. Besides landscapes, of
which he painted several hundred, Corot produced a number of figure
pictures which are much prized. These were mostly studio pieces,
executed probably with a view to keep his hand in with severe drawing,
rather than with the intention of producing pictures. Yet many of them
are fine in composition, and in all cases the colour is remarkable for
its strength and purity. Corot also executed a few etchings and pencil
sketches. In his landscape pictures Corot was more traditional in his
method of work than is usually believed. If even his latest
tree-painting and arrangement are compared with such a Claude as that
which hangs in the Bridgewater gallery, it will be observed how similar
is Corot's method and also how masterly are his results.

The works of Corot are scattered over France and the Netherlands, Great
Britain and America. The following may be considered as the first
half-dozen: "Une Matinee" (1850), now in the Louvre; "Macbeth" (1859),
in the Wallace collection: "Le Lac" (1861); "L'Arbre brise" (1865):
"Pastorale--Souvenir d'Italie" (1873), in the Glasgow Corporation Art
Gallery; "Biblis" (1875). Corot had a number of followers who called
themselves his pupils. The best known are Boudin, Lepine, Chintreuil,
Francais and Le Roux.

AUTHORITIES.