Camille Corot to Orthodox Icons: Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree's Gifts to the Collection

About

Leslie had always loved Corot, and shared this passion with her husband Paul. Together, they developed a lifelong affinity for collecting the French landscape painter. Leslie continued adding to the collection after Paul’s death. Her entire collection, on view here, includes 14 paintings, 17 prints, and two drawings.

Camille Corot’s paintings surprised and beguiled art critics, fellow artists, and even collectors. His paintings were modern and simple, yet grand. His light-drenched palette of colors, his choice of scenes with luminous atmospheres, and his signature brushwork were all see as new and innovative, and and not always immediately grasped. Corot’s influence on contemporary landscape artists of his day was enormous; he bridged the gap between Neoclassical and Romantic painters. He was an observant painter who relished every detail of nature from the radiance of light to the softness of a hazy fog.

The seven Barbizon paintings in this exhibition include the artists Charles Francois Daubigny, Jules Dupre, Hippolyte Camille Delpy, Diaz de la Pena, and Theodore Rousseau.These artists valued the rural over the industrial -- their paintings highlighted peasants who worked the land, herded sheep, and ate simple meals in quiet cottages. The artists of the Barbizon School avoided formalism in favor of painterly “truth.” The French Impressionists, who would follow, continued the Barbizon School’s innovations of working in a painterly style, painting quickly, en plein air, and finding their subjects drawn directly from life. 

Orthodox icons were also a collecting interest for Leslie.  She hung them in a small room with royal blue-painted walls and began every day meditating in that room. The spiritual power of the images is released when the icons are kissed, stroked, and held. Leslie’s icon collection is well-loved, and her prayerfulness can be observed in the marks and blemishes on the icons.

This exhibition pays tribute to Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree's memory and her generosity to Westmont College.