Precursors to Impressionism “A...-C...-”, Art History Posters
for history of art and social studies classrooms.

Spring at Barbizon, 1868-73,
Jean-Francois Millet,
Giclee Print

Karl Bodner
Eugene Boudin

John Constable
Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot

Encampment of the Travellers on the Missouri, Giclee Print

Karl Bodner
b. 2-6-1809; Switzerland
d. 10-30-1893

Swiss born artist Karl Bodner lived in Barbizon and became known as a painter of forest landscapes and depictions of birds and mammals. His painting and aquatints of Native Americans from his North American trip with German naturalist and explorer Prince Maximilan, were forgotten by the time of his death.

Eugène Boudin
b. 7-12-1824; Trouville, France
d. 8-8-1898; Deauville

Eugène Boudin was a French seascape painter who was one of the first artists to paint outside, a characteristic of the Impressionists. Corot called him the ‘master of the sky.’

Eugène Boudin quotes:
• “Anything painted directly, on the spot, always has a strength, a power, a lively touch that is lost in the studio. Your first impression is the right one. Stick to it and refuse to budge.”
• “To steep oneself in the sky. To capture the tenderness of the clouds. To let the cloud masses float in the background, far off in the gray mist, and then make the blue blaze forth.”

• more clouds in art posters

John Constable
b. 6-11-1776; Suffolk
d. 3-31-1837

John Constable, an English Romantic painter of the 19th century, sketched outside believing his paintings should come as directly as possible from nature in order to capture the changing skies and light.

John Constable quotes:
• “I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.”
• “Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?”
• “Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.”

• Constable's Clouds: Paintings and Cloud Studies by John Constable

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
b. 7-16-1796; Paris, France
d. 2-22-1875

Corot was a painter and printmaker associated with the Barbizon school and also worked in the neo-classical tradition. Corot, was one of the first to paint directly on the canvas in the open air, was a teacher of Camille Pissarro.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot quotes ~
• “Art is nature as seen through a temperament.”
• “Don't imitate, don't follow the others, or else you will lag behind them.”
• “The most important things in a painting are Form and Value. Color comes last ....”
• “Heavens, how charming it is! There is now in the sky only the soft vaporous color of pale citron - the last reflection of the sun which plunges into the dark blue of the night, going from green tones to a pale turquoise of an unheard-of fineness and a fluid delicacy quite indescribable...”

• Corot in Teachable Moments

Gustave Courbet
b. 6-10-1791; Ornans, France
d. 12-31-1877; Switzerland

Gustave Courbet, whose work eschewed the predominant Romantic & Neoclassical schools of 19th century French painting, coined the term ‘realism’. Courbet chose to work spontaneously, without refinement, which was a visual precursor to the Impressionists.

Gustave Courbet quotes:
• “Painting is the representation of visible forms. . . The essence of realism is its negation of the ideal.”
• “Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things.”
• “Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.”

• lake posters