successful besides painting?

[Illustration]

DANCE OF THE NYMPHS

=Questions to arouse interest.= Of what is this a picture? What time
of the year do you think it is? what time of the day? What are the
people doing? Half close your eyes and look at the picture. What do
you see first? what next? Where is the sun? How do you know? (Look at
the trunks of the trees and the shadows.) What do you see in the
foreground to the left? to the right? Do you like this scene? why?

=Original Picture:= Luxembourg Gallery, Paris, France.
=Artist:= Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (k[+o]'r[+o]'').
=Birthplace:= Paris, France.
=Dates:= Born, 1796; died, 1875.

=The story of the picture.= The artist who painted this picture, Jean
Baptiste Corot, tells us that when he was a small boy he used to lean
out of his window at night, long after his mother and father thought
him safe in bed, to watch the clouds, the sky, and the trees. He
continued this study as a young man, and soon made friends with three
other young men, all artists (Rousseau, Daubigny, and Dupre) who were
also studying nature. All had studios and painted in the city; but
they were always longing for a glimpse of the country. One day the
four started out together for a day's outing, each taking his
painter's outfit. They went to the end of the omnibus line from Paris
and then started on foot for a long tramp across the country. It was
then they thought of the great Forest of Fontainebleau, where nature
was wild and undisturbed in its wondrous beauty.

"We will go to that beautiful forest and spend our vacation there,"
they said.

And so it came about several weeks later. In this forest, at all times
of the day or night, they could be found wandering about, searching
out new vistas and discovering new wonders and beauties in nature.

They hid their paints and brushes in the rocks to keep them from the
dew, and they themselves slept under the spreading branches of the
great oak trees. These city-bred young men, brought up in the rush and
hurry of the great city of Paris, cared for no other shelter than the
wide expanse of sky and the protecting branches of the trees.

So when we know that later Corot came to live near this Forest of
Fontainebleau, it is easy to guess where he painted this picture
called the "Dance of the Nymphs." Sometimes this picture is called
"Morning," for Corot painted another picture much like this one, and
calle