Barbizon school

Barbizon school , an informal school of French landscape painting that flourished c.1830-1870. Its name derives from the village of Barbizon, a favorite residence of the painters associated with the school. Théodore Rousseau was the principal figure of the group, which included the artists Jules Dupré, Narciso Diaz de la Peña, Constant Troyon, and Charles Daubigny. These men reacted against the conventions of classical landscape and advocated a direct study of nature. Their work was strongly influenced by 17th-century Dutch landscape masters including Ruisdael, Cuyp, and Hobbema. Corot and Millet are often associated with the Barbizon group, but in fact Corot's poetic approach and Millet's humanitarian outlook place them outside the development of the school. The Barbizon painters helped prepare for the subsequent development of the impressionist schools. Paintings of the Barbizon school were very popular with American collectors of the late 19th and early 20th cent. and influenced American painters of this period. The school is well represented in American collections, notably the Corcoran Gallery, the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Bibliography: See American Art Assn., Master Prints of the Barbizon School (1970); studies by J. Bouret (tr. 1973) and C. R. Sprague (1982).

Barbizon school French school of landscape painting in the 19th century. Led by Théodore Rousseau in the late 1840s, the group worked near Barbizon, n France. Artists included Charles Daubigny, Diaz de la Peña, Jules Dupré, and Constant Troyon. They embraced a longing for the freedom of nature, escaping the restraints of Parisian art. Inspired by Constable and 17th-century Dutch landscapists, they were forerunners of impressionism.

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Barbizon School. An informal group of French landscape painters, active from the 1830s to about 1870, who took their name from a small village on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where they worked and where some of them eventually settled. The central figure of the group was Théodore Rousseau; the other members included Charles-François Daubigny, Narcisse Diaz, Jules Dupré (1811–89), Charles Jacque (1813–94), and Constant Troyon. They were united in their opposition to the conventions of the classical tradition stemming from Claude and Poussin and by their interest in landscape painting for its own sake, a fairly new development in French art. Their inspiration came partly from England, particularly Constable, and partly from the 17th-century Dutch painters whom Constable so admired. They advocated painting direct from nature, but unlike the Impressionists, they usually painted only studies in the open air; their finished pictures were almost always done in the studio. Corot, who was one of the first artists to work in the forest, is often associated with the group, but his work has a poetic and literary quality that sets him somewhat apart. Millet is also often linked with the School, as he settled in Barbizon in 1849 and during his last period painted pure landscapes. Most of the Barbizon painters initially struggled in their careers, but their fortunes improved during the 1850s and all the main figures eventually won official honours. The peak of their popularity came (posthumously for most of them) in the 1880s and 1890s.