Banks of a River Dominated in the Distance by Hills

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was still painting at seventy-six when he produced this 1872 river landscape — one of his final years of sustained production before his death in 1875. By this point his river and forest subjects had achieved a distinctive silvery atmospheric quality that set him apart from both academic landscape and emerging Impressionism. Banks of a river dominated by distant hills is a compositional formula Corot had explored since the 1820s on the Seine and Loire, distilling landscape into its essential elements of water, shore, foliage, and sky. The Rhode Island School of Design's holding of this late work connects it to the strong American collecting of Barbizon painting that made Corot one of the most collected European artists in the United States.

Corot's late river landscapes employ his signature silvery atmosphere: soft grey-greens, hazy middle distances, feathery foliage rendered with gentle flickering marks. The tonal range is narrow and harmonious rather than contrasted. Water reflects the sky with subtle gradations that convey stillness and cool northern light.