"The first two things to study are form and values. For me, these are the bases of what is serious art. Color and finish put charm into one’s work.. ..it seems to me very important to begin by an indication of the darkest values (assuming that the canvas is white), and to continue in order to the lightest value. From the darkest to the lightest I would establish twenty shades.. .Never lose sight of that first impression by which you were moved. Begin by determining your composition. Then the values – the relation of the forms to the values. These are the basis. Then the color, and finally the finish."
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Quote from Corot's 'Notebooks', ca. 1828, as quoted in Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 240
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875) was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching and famous art teacher in Paris. Corot was a leading figure in the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism
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