Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 'Peasants under the Trees at Dawn', about 1840-5

Under a spreading tree in the left foreground a man and a woman stand among piles of logs, branches and tree trunks. The man is sawing, while the woman reaches up into the tree itself, a gesture frequently depicted by Corot, and also seen in his The Leaning Tree Trunk. A stream (the Auxois) winds its way from behind the foreground boulder through the gully on the left-hand side to the hill beyond. A young girl in the background is sitting looking down into the water. The sunlight is coming from the right background. The seated girl and the logs under the tree are all strongly highlighted in shades of cream. The hill, directly against this light, appears misty and green, with the houses and trees dissolving in the radiance. The misty atmosphere is also heightened by Corot’s use of ‘coloured greys’, in this case a grey with a hint of lavender blue, and made up of black, white, blue and vermilion pigments.

The scene is set in Lormes, the principal town in the area of the Morvan, western Burgundy, where many of its inhabitants earned their living by tree felling. The mill quarter of the town is depicted, and the tall building glimpsed on the left is one of two imposing houses which still stand today. Corot’s father’s family came from this region, and it was one which Corot himself frequently visited. During three stays in 1841, 1842 and 1844 he painted around 15 pictures, many distinguished by the originality of their composition, with such features as high horizons and exceptional light effects, as can be seen here.

Corot drew some elements of the composition before beginning to paint. In places a brown underpaint is visible, such as to the left of the tree, but in general the paint is smoothly and evenly applied. As was his customary habit, Corot painted the sky after the landscape itself, bringing it around the central tree and the houses on the right and left. He subsequently added further branches to the tree in a distinct dark brown paint with silver for the foliage.