FRENCH ARTIST COMMUNITIES TALK 1: THE BARBIZON SCHOOL

Sat 15 Nov 2025, 11am–12pm

At the Museum and Online

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.

Tickets are £8 each. Booking is essential.

Tickets will be available to book soon

With Juliet Heslewood, Author and Art Historian

The first in a series of four talks examining four communities of French artists: The Barbizon school, the Painters of Pont Aven. Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, and The Fauves – the ‘Wild Beasts’ of the Mediterranean.

Barbizon is a small village on the edge of Fontainebleau forest – a short train journey from Paris. In the mid-19th century several artists settled there to paint their surroundings, working mostly ‘en plein air’ out of doors rather than in studios, with oil paint now conveniently portable, available in tubes.

Millet observed the peasant community, Corot responded to the forest’s trees and rocky ground, and Daubigny found beauty in twilight hours.

Each artist created of Barbizon their own version of nature and in hindsight, their significant contribution to landscape painting led the way towards Impressionism.