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Why did Camille Corot add figures from the Bible and classical legends to some landscapes?
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Camille Corot
Portrait de l'artiste, assis près d'un chevalet (“Portrait of the Artist, Seated Near an Easel”), oil on paper pasted on canvas by Camille Corot, 1825; in the Louvre, Paris.
In the early 19th century, the art market and public exhibitions, such as the Paris Salon, generally favored finished, large-scale landscapes over the spontaneous sketches made directly from nature.1
To align with these expectations and elevate the perceived dignity of his work, Camille Corot included small figures identified with heroic characters from the Bible, literature, or classical legend in his exhibition-ready paintings. By incorporating these figures, Corot followed a tradition established by 17th-century painters like Claude Lorrain, using them in an incidental manner to lend a sense of narrative or historical weight to his landscapes.1