What to do on a Friday night in Paris?
Wander around the Louvre.
Instead of heading straight to the Mona Lisa or Vénus de Milo, I chose a random entrance and let the museum lead me to new inspiration. Climbing several staircases and long corridors, the Louvre offered me Camille Corot’s Souvenir de Mortefontaine (1864).
Dreamy, bucolic, and gentle, encountering this work was just what I needed to transition into the weekend.
From my very first glimpse of Souvenir de Mortefontaine, I experienced an immediate sensation of calm, an invitation to meditate. As a writer, visual works that offer a lot of space for reflection are particularly appealing to me. The misty, blurry quality of the painting seemed to emphasize an emotional atmosphere over a physical one, allowing my mind to recall similar settings from my own life. Worlds of words came to me.
Though Corot was not an Impressionist, his later work shows signs of its development. Moving away from Neoclassicism in Souvenir de Mortefontaine, Corot’s attention to light and reflections, privileging sensations and impressions over strict representation, illustrate evolving techniques in painting.
The painting’s title also emphasizes its focus on suggestion. It is not a painting of a place but of the memory of a place.
According to my research, Mortefontaine inspired many artists’ works, including Watteau’s The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), which I wrote about here just a few weeks ago. Writers like Marcel Proust and Gérard de Nerval also spent time in the town, located just north of Paris in l’Oise. In Corot’s painting, a soft landscape of water and greenery glitters with ethereal specks of light: it’s no wonder to me that such a place would attract creatives.
Souvenir de Mortefontaine is roughly divided in two parts. On the right is a large tree reaching towards the middle of the painting, and on the left is a woman with two children, picking fruit from a smaller tree. A pond stretches behind the figures, reflecting the landscape beyond them.
In the composition, there seems to be an upward motion to the top left of the painting, as though its subjects were reaching to the sky or the heavens. Growth seems to be a theme, as both the trees and human beings stretch to their limits, trying to attain something.
Despite its attention to growth and life, Corot uses a rather muted color palette in the painting, reminding us that the subject is a representation of a memory. Rather than witnessing growth in first-hand vibrancy, the filter of memory and time subdues certain details. The cool blues and greens of the landscape contrast with the warm colors found only in the woman and children’s clothing.
There is something unrealistic about the painting’s uniformity of color. The dream-like scene somehow left me not only with a sense of calm, but a slight tinge of melancholy: what I was looking at was entirely in the past.
From a narrative perspective, I found myself wondering if the children in the painting had since grown up, if the woman were still alive. Alternatively, were the figures allegories of some kind? Must one grow up to reach life’s fruit?
In front of the painting, I, too, found myself reaching—for answers and stories.
After studying Corot’s masterpiece, I enjoyed some Jean-François Millet and Théodore Rousseau paintings in adjacent rooms, as well as some stunning 19th century furniture. Making my way to the exit, I saw several works of art I had studied way back in my first study abroad semester in Paris, invoking their own flow of fuzzy memories.
On Saturday afternoon I attended a friend’s beautiful wedding in Clichy. The salle de mariage ceiling offered a lovely meditation on marriage, each of its corners holding a painting representing fidelity, protection, truth, and love.
Next week I’ll be off to Oxford for our first year two residency. I’m looking forward to getting fresh feedback on my novel and kicking off another intense year of writing.
Wishing you all a fantastic week.
à la prochaine !
Rachel