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Why did Camille Corot make small oil sketches outdoors?
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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.
Camille Corot created small oil sketches outdoors to capture the immediacy of light and atmosphere directly from nature. Throughout his career, he preferred to work outdoors rather than in a studio, relying on firsthand experience to learn and develop his craft.12
These sketches served several purposes in his artistic process:
- Technical Foundation: By painting from nature, Corot mastered tonal relationships, focusing on the balance and gradation of light and dark tones, which became the basis of his art.2
- Source Material: He used these direct, spontaneous sketches to collect enough material to inform his larger, finished compositions for the rest of his life.2
- Artistic Expression: While finished landscapes were preferred for public exhibition at the Salon during the early 19th century, Corot’s sketches demonstrated a vitality and spontaneity that lacked in more formal works.2
Ultimately, these sketches allowed Corot to explore a naturalistic approach that helped prepare the way for the Impressionists, who later came to highly value the technical freedom and clarity found in his outdoor studies.21