Ville d’Avray, l’étang au bouleau devant les villas

Rural scene (Oil painting on canvas from 1873) owned by the Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen. It is usually associated with Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) with the painters of the Barbizon school, who painted realistically as a reaction against the most rigorous Romanticism of the time. Although the realist Corot had the heart of a romantic, hence his work is a bridge between the two trends. This piece was painted in the winter of 1872–73 for his friend Alfred Robaut, who catalogued his work for the first time. His paintings distilled the characteristic harmony of the Arcadia, a classic reminder of his early influences. This rural scene, painted in 1873, is of a dreamy poetic lyrism. In the foreground, and some trees of considerable dimensions appear, compositional form that used to go through the artist, to the left, and through its branches, this tree reveals a set of idealized buildings and, at the front, the rabbinate of a river. Likewise, the two people are characteristic of their production, since Corot invariably included a single intense colored spot, such as a beret or a red shawl, that would call attention and allow him to focus the scene.

In his Parisian circle, he was known by the nickname Father Corot, for his charitable spirit and habit of helping young artists in difficulty.