CHAPTER  XI
COROT

IF,  on  our  arrival  in  Paris,  we  go  at  once  to  the
dear  little  village  of  Barbizon  and  wait  quietly
there  for  a  few  days,  we  surely  will  feel  the  spell
of  the  same  spirit — the  spirit  of  nature  calling —
creeping  over  us  that  crept  over  the  French  art
world  a  hundred  years  ago.  Not  every  artist  at
that  time  was  willing  to  heed  the  new  spirit  that
was  stirring  abroad,  but  those  who  did  heed  made
that  dear  little  hamlet  at  the  edge  of  the  Forest  of
Fontainebleau  the  greatest  centre  of  the  new  cre-
ation of  art  since  the  Italian  Renaissance.  But
these  men  who  finally  crystallized  around  the  Bar-
bizon-Fontainebleau  centre  were  at  first  part  and
parcel  of  the  artists  we  have  watched  gather  and
disperse  in  the  ateliers  of  Paris.  These  men
however,  were  creative  destructors  and  their  pro-
tests carried  them  back  to  the  very  fundamentals
of  art  where  nature  furnished  incentive  and
varied  themes.  One  strange  fact  was  that  they
all  worked  individually,  not  to  form  a  school,  but

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114  FRENCH  PICTURES

simply  to  express  themselves.  Possibly  the  inci-
dent that  brought  them  together  was  Constables'
exhibition  of  "The  Haywain,"  in  Paris  in  1824.
When  they  saw  this  picture  they  recognized  the
elemental  undertone  of  truth  which  was  just  the
stimulus  they  needed  in  crystallizing  the  1830
Barbizon-Fontainebleau  school.
