Souvenir of Tuscany
c. 1845 · Etching on ivory laid paper · Image: 12.2 × 17.9 cm (4 13/16 × 7 1/16 in.); Plate: 13.3 × 18.2 cm (5 1/4 × 7 3/16 in.); Sheet: 25 × 34 cm (9 7/8 × 13 7/16 in.)
Corot, Souvenir of Tuscany, c. 1845. Etching on ivory laid paper.
The Art Institute of Chicago · Elizabeth Hammond Stickney Collection
How to look at a Corot
- Squint first. Count the masses. If you count more than four, squint harder.
- Find the lightest light (nearly always sky, or water reflecting sky) and the darkest dark (nearly always a foreground tree trunk or a shadow under foliage). Everything else sits between them.
- In the Italian graphite sheets, notice how much paper is untouched and how few lines describe a whole hill town. Then notice that every one of those lines is exactly placed.
- In the late charcoals, look for where an edge disappears: a trunk into shadow, a hill into sky. Those lost edges are the air.
- In the etchings, half-close your eyes until the lines vanish and only tones remain. That is what he was building.
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