Hagar in the Wilderness

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot painted Hagar in the Wilderness in 1835, depicting the biblical story of Abraham's concubine cast out into the desert with her son Ishmael. Corot painted this during his formative years, when he was developing the atmospheric landscape style that would make him one of the most influential French painters of the nineteenth century. The biblical subject provided a pretext for landscape painting of extraordinary sensitivity.

Corot's atmospheric rendering of the desert landscape demonstrates his emerging mastery of tonal painting. The soft, silvery palette and the gentle modulation of light and shadow anticipate the poetic landscape style that would influence the Impressionists.