Although Corot’s fame derives from his greatly admired landscape sketches, painted directly from nature, in his own day his reputation rested on his finished, studio compositions.

Michael Clarke re-examines the whole of Corot’s career and explores his place in the historical tradition of landscape painting as well as his links with French Romantic poetry.

Image above: Detail from Corot, The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct, probably 1826