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In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet
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On view Sunday, July 13 - Sunday, October 19, 2008 at the Audrey Jones Beck Building
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Claude Monet, Bazille and Camille (Study for "Déjeuner sur l´herbe"), 1865
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970
"A tree is an edifice, a forest a city, and among all the forests, the Forest of Fontainebleau is a monument," Victor Hugo wrote in 1872, expressing the love and admiration of this magical place that he shared with his fellow Parisians and with generations of French landscape painters in particular.
This exhibition transports the viewers deep into the shady glens and dramatic gorges, over the rugged terrain of giant boulders, and to the edges marshes that make up the varied topography of this former royal hunting domain which became the cradle and crucible of French landscape painting.
The exhibition traces the steps of three generations of painters who sought out Fontainebleau as their ´natural studio´ between the 1820s and 1870s. Located only 35 miles from Paris, virtually unspoiled and uninhabited yet easily accessible, it was the ideal site to develop plein air painting in France. Corot´s Little Easel Carrier, 1823-24, is not only an early and astonishingly fresh example, but also illustrates the logistics of working out of doors. Equipped with portable easels, folding umbrellas and stools, the artists set out from one of the surrounding villages like Barbizon or Chailly to grasp nature as she revealed herself directly before their eyes. Although the choice of motifs, scale, sense of color as well as brushwork techniques change from one generation to the next, the feeling of immediacy and the freshness of natural phenomena closely observed prevail throughout. Grouped together as the Barbizon School, painters like Rousseau, Daubigny, and Courbet took the genre of French landscape painting to new heights in a movement which was to culminate in the light-filled canvases of the young impressionists, beautifully represented by Monet´s The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau Forest, 1865.
Besides natural aspects of the forest, which fall under topography, weather, rocks and trees, village life is explored in depth. No one has ever captured the dignity of people working the land with more sensitivity and empathy than Jean-François Millet, whose affinity for village life was so great that he settled in Barbizon. His delicate pastels of the villagers, such as Shepherdess Knitting, outside the Village of Barbizon, 1860-62, have become icons of a simpler, better life. Although most artists continued to live in Paris, during the summer months as many as one hundred would descend upon Babizon, transforming it literally into the ´colony of colonies.´ During the years of the hey-day of the painters´ colony a number of pioneers in the new medium of photography, including Gustave LeGray, Eugène Cuvelier, and John B. Green, first explored landscape photography in the Forest of Fontainebleau. The comparison of Cuvelier´s Beech Tree near the Bodmer, of the early 1860s, with Monet´s work reveals both the close proximity and the creative rivalry between artists working in different media, both inspired by the same monumentality to be found in the Forest of Fontainebleau.
This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
In Houston, this exhibition receives generous funding from The Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation Exhibition Fund.
Additional support is provided by:
The National Endowment for the Arts
The Hildebrand Fund
Cynthia and Tony Petrello
Sotheby´s
The Scaler Foundation
Texan-French Alliance for the Arts and its presenting partner The Levant Foundation
Education programs for this exhibition receive generous funding from the Texan-French Alliance for the Arts and its presenting partner SUEZ Energy North America.
Related Events:
Creation Station: CANCELED
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Due to the pending arrival of Hurricane Ike, the following lecture has been rescheduled for SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Saturday, September 13, 2008 4:00 PM
Due to the pending arrival of Hurricane Ike, the following lecture is rescheduled for FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2008 AT 1:30 P.M.
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Friday, September 12, 2008 1:30 PM
Closing day for In the Forest of Fontainebleau
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Sunday, October 19, 2008 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Exhibition Tour: In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Saturday, August 2, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Thursday, August 7, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Saturday, August 9, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Tuesday, August 12, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Saturday, August 16, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Thursday, August 21, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Saturday, August 23, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Thursday, August 28, 2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Saturday, August 30, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Friday Afternoon Lecture: An Infinite Museum
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Friday, September 19, 2008 1:30 PM
Friday Afternoon Lecture: French Painters and the Forest of Fontainebleau
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Friday, September 5, 2008 1:30 PM
Hearst Foundation Evenings for Educators: The Great Outdoors: Corot, Monet, and Others Paint the Forest of Fontainebleau
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Thursday, October 2, 2008 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Rescheduled Event: Friday Afternoon Lecture: Impressionists in the Forest of Fontainebleau
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Friday, October 17, 2008 1:30 PM
Saturday Afternoon Lecture: An Infinite Museum
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Saturday, September 20, 2008 4:00 PM
Saturday Afternoon Lecture: French Painters and the Forest of Fontainebleau
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Saturday, September 6, 2008 4:00 PM
Special Invitation: Music on a Midsummer´s Night
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Thursday, August 14, 2008 6:30 PM
Sunday Samplings
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Sunday, August 17, 2008 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
UBS Fine Arts Fridays
At the Audrey Jones Beck Building
Friday, July 11, 2008 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
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