Corot Part 2

Simple and single-minded, happily pursuing the occupation that of all others he would have chosen, he made his life a work of art more lovely than the most beautiful of his paintings. No one can live in such a world as this for the allotted span and more without becoming acquainted with grief, but Corot knew none of those searing sorrows which scorch their way into heart and brain, until they make existence a burden hardly to be borne. His faith in "the good G.o.d," to whom he looked up with so childlike a confidence, was so complete that sorrow for him could hold no bitterness; nor, deeply sympathetic as he was, had it power over an impregnable content and an unfailing serenity.

And he died as he had lived. A few days before his death it is recorded "that he told one of his friends how in a dream he had seen 'a landscape with a sky all roses, and clouds all roses too. It was delicious,' he said; 'I can remember it quite well. It will be an admirable thing to paint.' The morning of the day he died, the 22nd of February, 1875, he said to the woman servant who brought him some nourishment, 'Le pere Corot is lunching up there to-day.'"

"It will be hard to replace the artist; the man can never be replaced,"

was one fine tribute to his memory; and another, "Death might have had pity and paused before cutting short so sweet a life-work."

A sale of some 600 of Corot's works took place in the May and June following his death. It realised nearly two million francs, or 80,000.

This is, of course, not a fraction of the sum that would be realised were the same pictures to be put up to auction to-day; but it shows that his achievement was beginning to be estimated at something approaching its true value.

Corot's work, of which at one time he was able to boast he had a "complete collection," is now scattered to the four corners of the earth. Paris possesses some splendid examples at the Louvre, and there are many not less admirable distributed among the provincial galleries of France. America holds a large number in public and private galleries, and there are in private ownership in this country Corots sufficient to make a magnificent collection. Lately the National Gallery has been enriched, by the Salting bequest, with seven fine paintings from the master's hand, eloquent witnesses alike to his individuality and variety.

To me it is an added joy, when I stand before a Corot picture, to think of the gracious personality of its creator. It is almost as if his eager, happy voice were pointing out the manifold beauties of the miraculously bedaubed canvas, and recalling the "moment," so certainly made permanent there.

It is always a "moment" that is seized in Corot's paintings, with the exception of some of the earliest. Nature is surprised with her fairest charms unveiled, in a pa.s.sing emotion, of laughter or of tears. There is life, movement, the tremble of being, in everything set down. The air is palpitant with colour, rainbows are dissolved in an atmosphere that clothes everything in magic and mystery.

Beneath the gay confidence of the painting, subserving the emotion of the moment, what knowledge is shown in these pictures! These tree forms, bold and delicate, with such wonderful subtleties of drawing in them, give more than externals. They reveal a very psychology of trees, the soul that the artist so plainly saw in everything around him. He was concerned to set down far more than the details of the scene before him, not in the least satisfied to be but a reporter. The higher, or, if you like, deeper verities were what he strove for, and the universal verdict to-day is that he did not strive in vain.

The figure-painting of Corot is comparatively little known, and it is a subject of too much importance to attempt to deal with adequately in small s.p.a.ce. An enthusiastic critic claims that it includes the artist's "absolute masterpieces," but I doubt if many would agree, beautiful as some of these figures are. They show the same faculty of apprehending a sudden revelation of beauty as is shown by the more familiar landscapes, the same exquisite sense of graces in form and colour, which elude the eyes of most of us. But it is still in landscape that Corot is supreme.

I have already stated my conviction that he was not greatly influenced by other artists, his predecessors, or contemporaries. Perhaps Constable, to mention but one name, helped to open his eyes, but once open he used them as his own. Again, the cla.s.sicism which surrounded him in his youth left gentle memories that in his age were never quite forgotten; but it was worn as sometimes an elderly gentleman wears a bunch of seals, and had about as much to do with the essential personality of the wearer.

He was always true to himself. His equipment was simple faith, definite purpose, and unflagging zeal. A clear eye, a dream-haunted brain, and a great loving heart--that was Corot.