The Barbizon School

In 1824 the Paris salon exhibited works of John Constable. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became the subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events. Shortly afterwards, artists began to gather together at village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau to follow Constable’s ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings.

John Constable, The Hay Wain, 1821, oil on canvas, 130 x 185 cm, National Gallery, London, UK. Exhibited at the Salon of 1824.

Richard Parkes-Bonington, who also exhibited at the 1824 salon, had a great influence on the group, although he died young.

The French landscape became a major theme of the Barbizon painters, who were moving away from the traditional classic style towards a realism in art. Jean-François Millet, one of the leaders of the Barbizon school, along with Théodore Rousseau and Charles-François Daubigny, extended the idea of landscape to include figures, but especially figures of the poor performing their everyday tasks.

Théodore Rousseau, Paysage à Barbizon, c1850, oil on canvas, 24 x 32 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia

Charles-François Daubigny, Lune levant à Daubigny, c1850, oil on canvas, 94 x 151 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent, Belgium

Others in the group included Constant Troyon, Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, Jules Dupré, and Henri Harpignies

Constant Troyon, Troupeau passant le gué, 1852, oil on canvas, 73 x 106 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Narcisse Virgilio Díaz, Forest of Fontainebleau, 1868, oil on canvas, 84 x 111 cm, Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA

Jules Dupré, Le vieux chêne, c. 1870, oil on canvas, 32 x 42 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

Henri Harpignies, Landscape with two figures, c.1870s, oil on canvas, 32 x 43 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

In the spring of 1829, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot came to Barbizon and returned in the autumn of 1830 and in the summer of 1831.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Forêt de Fontainebleau, 1830, oil on canvas, 176 x 243 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

During the late 1860s, the Barbizon painters attracted the attention of a younger generation of French artists studying in Paris. Several of those artists visited the forest of Fontainebleau to paint the landscape, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille.