American Art Collaborative

Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot were associated with the Barbizon school, a group of artists active in the lushly forested Fontainebleau region of France in the mid-nineteenth century. While their works were widely revered in the United States, in their native country these artists were seen as rebels against academic tradition, because of their humble, nonhistorical subject matter and tendency to work out-of-doors, rather than in a studio. Daubigny equipped his small boat, the Botin (meaning “little box,” and visible in A River Landscape on the far bank) for painting excursions. The Botin became a way of life for the artist, despite conditions that made it difficult for him to paint. Battling the elements and recording the changing characteristics of the landscape was a common practice of Barbizon artists, one that would influence a younger generation of painters, the Impressionists.