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Why did Camille Corot prefer painting outdoors to working in a studio?

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Camille Corot: Portrait de l'artiste, assis près d'un chevalet — 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 preferred painting outdoors because he valued learning through firsthand experience, allowing him to capture the immediacy of light and atmosphere directly from nature. From the beginning of his career, he chose to sit outdoors to sketch what he saw, rather than relying solely on studio work.12

These outdoor sessions resulted in small, spontaneous oil sketches that Corot prized for their technical freedom, clear color, and vitality—qualities he felt were often missing in more formal, finished pictures. By working in this manner, he developed a mastery of tonal relationships, which became the fundamental basis of his art. Throughout his life, he maintained a routine of spending the spring and summer months painting outside, only retiring to his studio in the winter to develop larger, more composed works for exhibition.1