Profile of Works
A Pensive Girl
- c. 1865-70
- Oil on canvas
- 46.3 x 38.1 cm
The images of the TFAM’s collection on our website are available for free.
High-resolution image is available from PHOTO AGENCY.
The inborn landscape poet Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot is the master of portrait painter, as well. Since around the age of 40, Corot had painted portraits of daughters of his acquaintances or children of his friends, and after around 1850, his figure paintings began to change: minutely detailed depictions, including the models’ personal features, were gradually vanishing from the picture surfaces. The figures depicted by Corot came to intensify an “allegorical nature,” taking on a “symbolic nature” that is linked with an attempt to poetically evoke the essence of art.
On the other hand, the landscapes where such a figure is placed are depicted as non-specific, fictitious places, as well as the backgrounds that create the atmosphere of nature itself. The picture surface of this painting, full of romantic fantasy and faraway melancholy, turned into the world surrounded by a poetic, tranquil atmosphere. Especially in his later years, the painter suffered from rheumatism and had to restrain himself to sketch landscapes in the open air, and thus, he often executed figure paintings in a room, portraying models who posed for his paintings. The paintings that Corot executed in the second half of the 1860s are examples of such paintings.
This painting captures a girl with her head down in three quarter view facing left, and its composition is very similar to that of the Girl Reading, also known as Seated Shepherdess Reading (c. 1855-1865) in the Oskar-Reinhart Collection, Winterthur. However, this painting exhibits a deeper poetic and contemplative atmosphere on the entire picture than the other similar one.
Corot added a few dark brown lines and a couple of small ocherous touches of brush behind the model. For those who are familiar with Corot’s landscape paintings, it is quite obvious what these thin lines and touches looking like some kind of signs indicate. They are the trunks or branches of trees or the ancient castle seen beyond the treetop or the "forest life" that seems to vibrate the surrounding air. This is a leitmotiv (literally meaning ‘leading motif’) in which he was skilled and the forms that he painted constantly and countlessly in his whole lifetime. The “melancholia” (melancholic temperament) represented as an image of contemplative figure refers to an artist itself. Therefore, this work can also be interpreted as an allegory depicted as a “symbol of art.”
The images of the TFAM’s collection on our website are available for free.
High-resolution image is available from PHOTO AGENCY.
ARTIST
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
(1796-1875)
Currently exhibiting
Sep 16, 2023 (Sat)
～Dec 10, 2023 (Sun)
Name of Exhibition :
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century—500 Years of Western Paintings
Place of Exhibition :
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 3
Exhibit history
- Jul 28, 2023 (Fri)～Aug 27, 2023 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Modern Eastern and Western Painting Exhibition Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art (Ishikawa, Japan) - Sep 17, 2022 (Sat)～Nov 20, 2022 (Sun)
400 Years of Western Paintings - Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum - Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan) - Jul 16, 2022 (Sat)～Sep 4, 2022 (Sun)
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan) - Mar 19, 2022 (Sat)～May 8, 2022 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan) - Oct 23, 2021 (Sat)～Dec 26, 2021 (Sun)
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan) - Jul 9, 2021 (Fri)～Aug 29, 2021 (Sun)
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan) - Dec 15, 2020 (Tue)～Jan 31, 2021 (Sun)
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan) - Sep 12, 2020 (Sat)～Nov 3, 2020 (Tue)
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan) - Jul 22, 2020 (Wed)～Sep 6, 2020 (Sun)
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan) - Feb 20, 2020 (Thu)～Apr 12, 2020 (Sun)
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan) - Sep 3, 2019 (Tue)～Oct 22, 2019 (Tue)
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan) - Jan 12, 2019 (Sat)～May 4, 2019 (Sat)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China) - Oct 23, 2018 (Tue)～Dec 23, 2018 (Sun)
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China) - Apr 29, 2017 (Sat)～Jun 25, 2017 (Sun)
The Collection of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum: East and West Encounters Niihama City Museum of Art (Ehime, Japan) - Oct 8, 2015 (Thu)～Feb 21, 2016 (Sun)
Japan’s Love for Impressionism - from Monet to Renoir The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn, Germany) - Apr 5, 2014 (Sat)～Jun 22, 2014 (Sun)
French Ceramics at the Time of Impressionism 1866-1886 Maturity of Japonisme Shiodome Museum (Tokyo, Japan) - Dec 20, 2013 (Fri)～Feb 2, 2014 (Sun)
French Ceramics at the Time of Impressionism 1866-1886 Maturity of Japonisme Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan) - Sep 13, 2008 (Sat)～Dec 7, 2008 (Sun)
Corot: Souvenirs et variations Kobe City Museum (Hyogo, Japan) - Jun 14, 2008 (Sat)～Aug 31, 2008 (Sun)
Corot: Souvenirs et variations The National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo, Japan) - Jul 14, 2007 (Sat)～Nov 25, 2007 (Sun)
Impressionists and Its Sources: Monet, Renoir, and Barbizon Masters Musee d'art Mercian KARUIZAWA (Nagano, Japan) - Apr 18, 2003 (Fri)～May 25, 2003 (Sun)
The Great Masters of Art Fukuoka Art Museum (Fukuoka, Japan) - Oct 12, 2002 (Sat)～Nov 10, 2002 (Sun)
Invitation to Occidental Painting Arts: from Barbizon School to Contemporary Art Abashiri Museum of Art (Hokkaido, Japan) - Sep 7, 2002 (Sat)～Sep 29, 2002 (Sun)
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection SOGO Museum of Art (Kanagawa, Japan) - Jul 20, 2002 (Sat)～Aug 31, 2002 (Sat)
Masterpieces of the East and West to Learn with Parents and Children Fuji Art Museum (Shizuoka, Japan) - May 16, 2002 (Thu)～Jun 23, 2002 (Sun)
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan) - Oct 1, 2000 (Sun)～Dec 3, 2000 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan) - Feb 13, 1999 (Sat)～Mar 29, 1999 (Mon)
Efforts of Humans and Activities of Nature Granship: Shizuoka Convention & Arts Center (Shizuoka, Japan) - Oct 14, 1997 (Tue)～Nov 30, 1997 (Sun)
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China) - Nov 3, 1990 (Sat)～Dec 2, 1990 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea) - Sep 22, 1990 (Sat)～Oct 21, 1990 (Sun)
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Origin of collections
- Provenance:
A. Portier,Beaulieu
Anonymous (sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 5,1912, lot 4, illustrated)
M. Sarlin
Aquavella Gallery, Inc, New York
Aquired from the above in 1971
Reference
Alfred Robaut, L’Œuvre de Corot; Catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1905, vol.Ⅲ, p.36, no.1347, illustrated with an etchinf by Portier, with incorrect measurements
C.Bernheim de Villers, Corot; peintre de figures, Paris, 1930, no.205 illustrated
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