''Ville-d’Avray'' is an 1865
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by
French artist
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. It is on display at the
National Gallery of Art in
Washington D.C.
)
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History
In 1817, Corot's father bought a country house in
Ville-d'Avray
Ville-d'Avray () is a Communes of France, commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris. The commune is part of the arrondissement of Boulogne-Billancourt in the Hauts-de-Seine Department ...
, on the outskirts of
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, where the painting was made. Ville d'Avray became for Corot the equivalent as the
Fontainebleau Forest for the
Barbizon
Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest.
Demographics
The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''.
Art history
The Barbizon school of painters is nam ...
artists. Throughout his career, the artist repeatedly painted views of this place.
Description
The painting depicts the calm surface of a lake and buildings on the far shore, the figures of peasants, merged with the landscape and engaged in their usual familiar and ordinary activities. The foreground is given to one of the artist favorite motifs: trees. Most likely, these are willows, which Corot painted quite often.
Gentle pastel tones create a strange drowsy atmosphere of early morning in this landscape. The silver sky is pale, the houses are reflected in the lake, and the sun that illuminates these houses is reminiscent of the picturesque sketches created by Corot in Italy.
The depicted objects are quite prosaic, but Corot makes the landscape evoke in the viewer a feeling of peace and tranquility, while the fullness of light and air originates a sense of graceful dissolution in nature.
Provenance
The painting was donated in 1955 to the
National Gallery of Art, in
Washington, D.C.
)
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, by Count Cecil Pecci-Blunt.
External links
''Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution'' a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on d'Avray (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ville d'Avray (Corot)
1865 paintings
Landscape paintings
Paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Collections of the National Gallery of Art
Water in art