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Italian or Woman with yellow sleeves
Camille Corot • Painting, 1870, 73×59 cm
Description of the artwork «Italian or Woman with yellow sleeves»
Since the 50s of the twentieth century, painting by Camille Corot "Italian, or a woman with a yellow sleeve" not exhibited publicly. Locked in private collections, she was out of sight. She began to forget about. And Corot himself existed in the public consciousness as a landscape painter for the most part. However, at the beginning of 2013, a sensation occurred in some way in the art world: it became known about the will of the deceased in 2011 Lucien freud - one of the most expensive artists of his era and the grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud.
In the will, Lucien Freud mentioned gratitude to the English people for the hospitality extended to his Jewish-German family: she had once been forced to flee from the Nazis and found a new homeland in England. The material expression of this gratitude were several bronze sculptures by Edgar Degas and another picture that Freud himself acquired in 2001 at an auction and since then she has decorated the top floor of his house in London. Lucien Freud wanted her to become a national treasure of Britain after his death. This picture was a woman with a yellow sleeve by Corot.
The 19th century French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) is best known for being one of the direct predecessors of impressionism, who wrote lyrical landscapes. His portraits are mostly late works, and some of them are no less significant than his landscape painting, although less well known.
Interestingly, Corot, with rare exceptions, almost did not write men. Most of his portraits are female. You can even talk about a special female type of Koro - a bit cold, melancholic and completely alien to all flirting with the audience. All the "girls Koro" immersed in themselves, thoughtful and detached, dreamy. These are the heroines of his famous paintings. "Interrupted reading" and "Studio"Such are the portraits of the artist's nieces Marie-Louise Laura Sennegon, married to Mrs Philibert Baudot, and Louise Claire Sennegon, the future Mrs. Charmois, and the last masterpiece of 78-year-old Corot "Lady in Blue". So that "Dark, direct and exacting look" (we use the lines of Marina Tsvetaeva) and tightly compressed lips “Italians with a yellow sleeve” are not something exceptional in the work of Koro. Rather, these traits reflect his psychological preferences and, perhaps, his own character - closed, purposeful and whole.
A special group among the female portraits of Camille Corot's brush are his ethnic sketches: "Pensive woman of the East" and "Blonde hairstyle", simply "Algerian woman" and "Algerian woman on the grass", "Young Albanian" and "Greek" ("Emma Daubigny in a Greek costume"), gypsies with mandolin and with a tambourine, as well as a number of portraits of Italians (1, 2, 3, 4), including the one that for ten years was at the disposal of Lucien Freud.
Three times in his life, Corot traveled to Italy - in the 1820s, 1834, and 1843. It was there that his talent became stronger and freed from the constraining conventions of the French Academy; in Italy, Corot, one might say, found himself. He paid tribute to not only the delights of Italian nature, but the beauty of Roman women. The artist's letter to a friend of his youth, Abel Osmon, has been preserved, a passage from which it is appropriate to quote:
“In my opinion, the Romans are the most beautiful women in the world ... Their eyes, shoulders, arms and hips are excellent. In this they are better than ours ... But, on the other hand, they are far from the grace and courtesy of French women ... As an artist, I prefer Italian; but in matters relating to the sensuality of the relationship between a man and a woman - I definitely choose a Frenchwoman ".
Author: Anna Yesterday
In the will, Lucien Freud mentioned gratitude to the English people for the hospitality extended to his Jewish-German family: she had once been forced to flee from the Nazis and found a new homeland in England. The material expression of this gratitude were several bronze sculptures by Edgar Degas and another picture that Freud himself acquired in 2001 at an auction and since then she has decorated the top floor of his house in London. Lucien Freud wanted her to become a national treasure of Britain after his death. This picture was a woman with a yellow sleeve by Corot.
The 19th century French artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) is best known for being one of the direct predecessors of impressionism, who wrote lyrical landscapes. His portraits are mostly late works, and some of them are no less significant than his landscape painting, although less well known.
Interestingly, Corot, with rare exceptions, almost did not write men. Most of his portraits are female. You can even talk about a special female type of Koro - a bit cold, melancholic and completely alien to all flirting with the audience. All the "girls Koro" immersed in themselves, thoughtful and detached, dreamy. These are the heroines of his famous paintings. "Interrupted reading" and "Studio"Such are the portraits of the artist's nieces Marie-Louise Laura Sennegon, married to Mrs Philibert Baudot, and Louise Claire Sennegon, the future Mrs. Charmois, and the last masterpiece of 78-year-old Corot "Lady in Blue". So that "Dark, direct and exacting look" (we use the lines of Marina Tsvetaeva) and tightly compressed lips “Italians with a yellow sleeve” are not something exceptional in the work of Koro. Rather, these traits reflect his psychological preferences and, perhaps, his own character - closed, purposeful and whole.
A special group among the female portraits of Camille Corot's brush are his ethnic sketches: "Pensive woman of the East" and "Blonde hairstyle", simply "Algerian woman" and "Algerian woman on the grass", "Young Albanian" and "Greek" ("Emma Daubigny in a Greek costume"), gypsies with mandolin and with a tambourine, as well as a number of portraits of Italians (1, 2, 3, 4), including the one that for ten years was at the disposal of Lucien Freud.
Three times in his life, Corot traveled to Italy - in the 1820s, 1834, and 1843. It was there that his talent became stronger and freed from the constraining conventions of the French Academy; in Italy, Corot, one might say, found himself. He paid tribute to not only the delights of Italian nature, but the beauty of Roman women. The artist's letter to a friend of his youth, Abel Osmon, has been preserved, a passage from which it is appropriate to quote:
“In my opinion, the Romans are the most beautiful women in the world ... Their eyes, shoulders, arms and hips are excellent. In this they are better than ours ... But, on the other hand, they are far from the grace and courtesy of French women ... As an artist, I prefer Italian; but in matters relating to the sensuality of the relationship between a man and a woman - I definitely choose a Frenchwoman ".
Author: Anna Yesterday
