Here is but one of the many popular landscapes that Corot turned out prolifically and repetitiously, all with the same gray, wispy tonality, formless foliage, and monotonous compositions. There was an eager market for these paintings. They made Corot rich, brought him fame and prestige. The painting of the last years of his life contributed nothing to his artistic reputation. Critics today do not approve of this portion of his works. Looking back to the magnificient work of his early years, comparing this landscape with a canvas like "The Port of La Rochelle", we cannot help regretting that so much of Corot's genius pandered to the public taste and patronage that were always ready in the nineteenth-century to applaud and purchase pictures painted down to an exceedingly low level of appreciation.

Corot did not always paint in this fashion. A few years ago a NY gallery acquired an early canvas, bold and clear, bathed in brilliant light. It was placed on the wall without a legend; and visitors were asked to guess. Nine out of ten attributed it to a twentieth-century painter. Some placed it in the school of Cubism!

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