ESCAPADES-FONTAINEBLEAU'S NEIGHBOR-BARBIZON(1)
Jack
http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/IDF/idf.toc.html
9 km from Fontainebleau, the most famous village of the region..... A
long street, bordered by luxurious inns in which one of them
"l'Hotellerie du Bas-Breau" R.L.Stevenson stayed, and venerable
houses crumbling under the ivy. A very touristic place. The tourist
coaches obstruct a little too much the view, but a visit is highly
recommended. It's already in the 19th century that the site hit the
eyes of the painters. Trotzki himself came here to have a rest of the
"permanent revolution". The Goncourt brothers described the village
like this: "this place is quite dead to the noises of the
capital....it enjoys the peace that surrounds a great forest, like
houses and squares make the shadow of their cathedrals". From 1825 to
1870, Barbizon became the Mecca of the landscape painters, in a style
called originally "ecole de Barbizon" of which the most representative
was Theodore Rousseau, Millet and Daubigny. This notoriety made it
into a place of pilgrimage where mainly American and Japanese tourists
are constantly on the march.
Numerous boutiques ateliers propose their work, that I should call
"barbizonneries", just useless crap good for naive tourists.
Nevertheless the visit is very agreeable. The forest is just next to
the village and the famous gorges d'Apremont are very near.
A few words about R.L.Stevenson ( thanks to the courtesy of Anne and
Michael Forest who provided me with most of the info about Stevenson's
stay in Barbizon").
Formerly a much smaller inn, keeping with the size of the village, is
the Hotellerie du Bas-Breau or "Stevensons House". The guest in most
renown was Robert Louis Stevenson, the man who made us dream of far
away pirate adventures with 'Treasure Island" or frightened us with
it's never equalled "Doctor Jekyll and Mr.Hyde". A noteworthy
character in his own right. Stevenson scattered anecdotes about
Mr.Siron (owner of the inn at that time) throughout his novels. He
befriended the painters and the refugees from city life, and spent
some of the most pleasant year of his life in this corner of the foret
de Fontainebleau. Stevenson's health was poor and he needed the fresh,
invigorating air. It is rare to find such a salubrious atmosphere in
plains lying so near a large city. The forest of Fontainebleau acts as
a kind of filter for the air. Therefore, in homage perhaps to a
Nature so kind, he has left us his "Forest Notes".
The Ecole de Barbizon
------------------------------------
It's out of the desire to leave the atelier, to see it "live", see the
"motive", the landscape of rural life, that this movement was born in
the country side and would end up as the "Ecole de Barbizon".
Influenced by the English and Dutch painters, Corot, Bruandet and
Michallon, made the trip already in the early 1820 's and finally
Millet in 1849, fleeing the cholera devastating Paris. These painters,
mainly Millet, became the painters of the peasant life and works.
Millet rendered homage to them with paintings like "Les Grandes
Glaneuses", "L'Angelus" or "l'Homme a la Houe", while Rousseau painted
here most of his masterpieces.
Later on, both were labelled by the critics as "pre-impressionists"
due to the importance of the atmosphere distilled by the light and the
importance of the landscapes. But other reasons than aesthetic ones
explain also the stunning success of Barbizon. Let's first remember
that painting in exteriors was not only a matter of taste: it's the
appearance, begin 19th century, of paint in tube with enough nuances
to paint on the motive. But another circumstance advantaged Barbizon
tremendously: the proximity of Fontainebleau and thus the protection
and patronage of the Imperial court and the bourgeoisie. And this is
determinant! Indeed, doing a portrait of one of the high royalties or
a big shot , being his protege, was the dream or at least a way of
earning his daily bread for every artist-painter. So, Barbizon
attracted them naturally then a cultural dynamics of affinities and
sympathies amplified the movement and made them stay more and more
numerous in the village. It was so evident at a certain epoch that the
village counted 150 painters and artists on 300 inhabitants! The
Barbizon phenomenon was born, and a rush stormed the village from
Europe to America! ( a bit like Saint-Germain in the 1950's). Artists
like Cezanne, Renoir, Seurat or Pissarro passed here, as well as
Verlaine and Heredia....Now to judge if the ecole de Barbizon had a
great influence in the history of art, that's another question! One
cannot say that creativity and a formal renewal illustrated the style.
Ok, Ok, let's accept the"pre-impressionist" word , but than
"pre-pre-pre" ;-).
Jack
Loire,Provence, Cote d'azur,Languedoc-Roussillon,Belgium and Dublin
posts are now available on http://home.earthlink.net/~primos/
My Paris, Ile -de-France and Languedoc-Roussillon posts on
http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/Paris/Paris.toc.html
General URL address http://www.worldtable.com/Jack/guides.html