Towards Impressionism

The catalogue of the exhibition to be shown at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Winter Park, FL and the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA will present a choice selection of 19th century French paintings from the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims in order to trace the history of French art from the Romantics to the School of Barbizon, the circle of Honfleur, and up to Impressionism. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims owns the second largest collection of works by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot after the Louvre as well as excellent landscape paintings by artists of the Barbizon School. Corot was one of the most significant painters involved with the Barbizonists. Studying the Reims holdings further, it seemed evident to edit a catalogue and curate an exhibition that reaches from the romantic spirit in French landscape painting to the School of Barbizon on to the group of artists around Eugène-Louis Boudin at Honfleur - the true cradle of Impressionism - and lastly to the Impressionists Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.