Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 343

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

COROT, JEAN-BAPTISTE-CAMILLE.

- Painter, born in Paris on 16 July 1796, died there on 22 February 1875. Encouraged by the painter A. E. Michallon, he studied (1796–1822) under Victor Bertin.

In 1825 he left for Italy, where he remained for three years; he returned there in 1834 and to Rome in 1849.

From then on, his art appeared to be in a state of continual development. He devoted his activity as a painter chiefly to the genre of landscape, but he also painted sacred subjects, still showing himself attached to classicizing forms: Hagar in the Desert (1835), St. Jerome in the church of Ville D'Avray (1836), The Flight into Egypt in the church of Rosny (1840), The Baptism of Jesus in the church of St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris (1840), The Mount of Olives in the museum of Langres (1849). These paintings, given their connection with academic precepts, should certainly not be counted among the works most significant for the evolution of C.’s pictorial language; nevertheless, a sincere religious sentiment emanates from them, and their significance in the spiritual development of the great painter is noteworthy.

BIBL.: E. Moreau-Nélston and R. Robaut, L'oeuvre de C., 4 vols., Paris 1904–1906; L. Dimier, Histoire de la peinture française au XIXe siècle, there 1914 (v. index); L. Gillet, s. V. in Enc. Ital., XI (1931), pp. 455–57; P. Cornu, s. V. in Thieme-Becker, VII (1912), pp. 449–53.

Felice De Filippis