Le Martinet near Montpellier
1836 · Pen and black ink, graphite on light blue laid paper · 13 1/4 x 19 3/4 in. (33.7 x 50.2cm)
Corot, Le Martinet near Montpellier, 1836. Pen and black ink, graphite on light blue laid paper.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Rogers Fund, 1926
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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