Internationally-renowned place of residence and tourism, the village of yesteryear, so beloved of artists, is still in evidence.
The School of Barbizon
The artists who came to Barbizon clearly had a common love of observing nature for its own sake and pronounced taste for freedom of artistic creation, but they often had highly differing sensitivities and aesthetic motivations. The forerunners who had begun painting in the forest of Fontainebleau as early as 1820, such as Camille Corot (1796-1875), Théodore Caruelle d’Aligny (1798-1871) and Paul Huet (1803-1869), are a case apart. These category-defying artists, with strong personalities, worked throughout France and did not base themselves in Barbizon; nonetheless, they were a driving force behind the artists who were to make the hamlet famous. Thus, Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) came to Fontainebleau as early as 1828 in the footsteps of Corot and Caruelle d'Aligny, before settling for good in Barbizon in 1847 in a house on the Grande Rue, now a branch of the Département museum.
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) settled in Barbizon in 1849; his studio still exists today.
His arrival in Barbizon marked a turning-point in his career which led him to make peasants going about their daily business the subjects of his work. His uncompromising vision, combined with a keen eye for rural life, places him in the realist tradition. Suspected of having anarchistic political leanings, he did particularly badly at the hands of the official jury.
