This is the largest of the four paintings acquired by Henry Clay Frick by Camille Corot, one of his favorite artists and one who inspired the Impressionists, among the next generation of French painters. Produced late in his career, The Lake dispenses with the naturalistic detail of Corot’s earlier landscapes in favor of a more poetic, indeed impressionistic evocation of the countryside. He referred to his later works as “souvenirs,” as they were often painted from his memory rather than from direct observation en plein air. Corot exhibited this picture at the Salon of 1861. One critic complained that all his pictures had begun to look alike, but Théophile Gautier, an influential critic who started out as a painter, championed The Lake for “its silvery atmosphere, luminous vapor, calm waters, light trees and Elysian mood.”
The Lake
Corot exhibited this large, nearly monochromatic picture at the Salon of 1861. Critical reactions to it varied. The critic J.A. Castagnary evoked most clearly the artist’s approach to painting at this time, saying: “The Lake is a ravishing landscape, simple in composition and full of grandeur. . . . When he sets himself before his canvas it is — like a musician seating himself at the piano — in order to give voice to the inspiration that torments him. What he wants is to express his personal feelings, not nature that inspired them in him.” But another reviewer, Théophile Thoré, was less sympathetic to this approach, remarking of The Lake: “Mist covers the earth. One is not sure where one is and one has no idea where one is going. Corot’s work is perhaps poetic, but it is not varied.”
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
De Bériot, Paris. Gavet, Paris. Brun, Paris. Marquis de Fressinet de Bellanger, Paris. Alexander Young, London. Knoedler. Frick, 1906.
Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: French, Italian and Spanish. Volume II. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.
