Interrupted Reading

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.