La petite charette dans les dunes

On the horizon of this landscape, rendered in sober earth tones, it is possible to make out the roofs of a village. A small brown hay wagon pulled by two horses makes its way through the foreground, and finds its counterpart in a tree with a thick, sliver-green crown: the two motifs that lend Camille Corot’s composition its balance. Furthermore, in contrast to many of his later works, the figures in his landscape are devoid of any religious or mythological association.

As a representative of the Barbizon School, Corot was a passionate devotee of al fresco painting, enriching his landscapes with an individual atmosphere. His working approach began with sketches, which he later completed in the studio. Even in these sketches, to which he devoted far more time than was customary in the contemporary academies, one can already see his interest in the light-dark values of landscape painting. They also display Corot’s keen interest in the atmosphere of his scenes, as reflected in the tranquil evening mood of this work. Corot was an important forerunner of Impressionism, and Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) was his student.