Questions to arouse interest. Of what is this a picture? What time of the year do you think it is? what time of the day? What are the people doing? Half close your eyes and look at the picture. What do you see first? what next? Where is the sun? How do you know? (Look at the trunks of the trees and the shadows.) What do you see in the foreground to the left? to the right? Do you like this scene? why?
Original Picture: Luxembourg Gallery, Paris, France.
Artist: Jean Baptiste Camille Corot [(k[+o]´r[+o]´´)].
Birthplace: Paris, France.
Dates: Born, 1796; died, 1875.
The story of the picture. The artist who painted this picture, Jean Baptiste Corot, tells us that when he was a small boy he used to lean out of his window at night, long after his mother and father thought him safe in bed, to watch the clouds, the sky, and the trees. He continued this study as a young man, and soon made friends with three other young men, all artists (Rousseau, Daubigny, and Dupré) who were also studying nature. All had studios and painted in the city; but they were always longing for a glimpse of the country. One day the four started out together for a day's outing, each taking his painter's outfit. They went to the end of the omnibus line from Paris and then started on foot for a long tramp across the country. It was then they thought of the great Forest of Fontainebleau, where nature was wild and undisturbed in its wondrous beauty.
"We will go to that beautiful forest and spend our vacation there," they said.
And so it came about several weeks later. In this forest, at all times of the day or night, they could be found wandering about, searching out new vistas and discovering new wonders and beauties in nature.
They hid their paints and brushes in the rocks to keep them from the dew, and they themselves slept under the spreading branches of the great oak trees. These city-bred young men, brought up in the rush and hurry of the great city of Paris, cared for no other shelter than the wide expanse of sky and the protecting branches of the trees.
So when we know that later Corot came to live near this Forest of Fontainebleau, it is easy to guess where he painted this picture called the "Dance of the Nymphs." Sometimes this picture is called "Morning," for Corot painted another picture much like this one, and called it, "The Dance of the Nymphs, Evening."
Corot is often spoken of as the "happy one," and many stories are told of him and how surprising it was to hear him singing lustily as he painted. Seated on his camp stool before his easel, wearing his blue calico blouse and painter's hat, he was indeed happy. He is described as adding the finishing touches to one of his landscapes in this way:
"Let us put that there—tra, la, tra, la,—a little boy,—ding dong, ding dong! Oh, a little boy, he wants a cap—la, la, la, la, tra la!"
People always smiled when they saw Corot start out, carrying his easel, paints, and brushes, and singing or whistling like a care-free boy. But it happened more often that they saw him going toward home in the evening, for he had a way of starting out before sunrise when nobody was about and seating himself in some lovely spot in the woods, waiting breathlessly to see what would happen next.