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En Plein Air

France's Barbizon School

Jean-Francois Millet, Peasant and Painte... (by Sensier, Alfred)
The Higher Life in Art : A Series of Lec... (by La Farge, John)
The Barbizon School of Painters : Corot,... (by Thomson, David Croal)
The Barbizon Painters; Being the Story o... (by Hoeber, Arthur)

France is often applauded for its couture fashion, fine cuisine, elegant architecture, and art movements. Many art movements emerging from France include Rococo, French Impressionism, Fauvism, and the Barbizon School.

The Barbizon School of painters were part of a French movement towards Realism, which was prevalent from 1830 through 1870. The movement’s name was derived from the town of Barbizon, France, which is located near the Forest of Fontainebleau. This sprawling 42,000-acre forest, filled with oak, Scots pine, European beech, and various mushrooms, is a short train ride away from Paris.

This easily accessible, picturesque region drew artists who traveled there to capture the rural scenes which they painted in a realistic manner. The artists ventured outdoors to paint “en plein air” (in the open air). Tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form characterize the style.

In The Higher Life in Art, Lectures on the Barbizon School, John La Farge writes,

The title, the name of the Barbizon, or the Fontainebleau school, is a mere expression of the fact that certain of the men whose names we associate with that title happened to live for a short time within the great and beautiful forest of Fontainebleau, and found therein sufficient themes for landscapes or those parts of their pictures that needed a landscape motive. (p. 27)

French painter Théodore Rousseau was a key figure of the Barbizon School. In 1848, he took up residence in the forest village and spent most of his remaining days there.

In The Barbizon School of Painters, David Croal Thomson writes,

During Théodore’s residence at the saw-pits, he was continually amongst the trees, and his occupation sometimes took him into the very heart of the forest, where the hand of man was quite untraceable. Spending many days in their deep glades, Rousseau became imbued with the very essence of the forest. (p. 103)

Other prominent artists associated with the movement include Constant Troyon and Charles-Francois Daubigny. In The Barbizon Painters, Arthur Hoeber writes, “In Paris, he (Troyon) immediately became one of the famous circle of revolutionary young men who were to make art history, and there began his intimacy with Rousseau, Millet, and others of the Barbizon Painters” (p.194).

Furthermore, the author writes of Daubigny:

Always he seemed to have had a brush in his hand, painting at first with his father, then picking up odds and ends of money here and there by general work, such as decorating bonbon boxes, fans, anything that would yield him even the scantiest return. In this way, he was driven to exercise much ingenuity, to become more or less of an adept at interesting compositions. (p. 249)

Realist painters Jean-Francois Millet and Camille Corot are also loosely associated with the Barbizon School. For more, explore Jean-Francois Millet, Peasant and Painter.

By Regina Molaro