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This view of village life belongs to a group of pictures that Corot painted during his stay in north-east France in the spring and summer of 1871. It reflects Corot’s lifelong love of the landscape. In the last years of his life, Corot turned to the countryside for solace as a reaction to the challenging political and social context that followed the Franco-Prussian War. He wrote in 1871, ‘The plight of our country, it seems, has driven me to take cover under the vault of heaven and a roof of leafage, and to hunt out the best places for listening to the concert of the birds.’ Images like this of a traditional French countryside were reassuring, and helped to bolster the nation’s self-image.

The tonality of this painting contrasts with other Corot landscapes in the Museum’s collection. While they are more clearly influenced by classical landscape artists like Claude, and capture the shimmering effects of soft evening light, La Route aux Bûcherons has more in common with Impressionist painters like Pissaro, Monet and Sisley. As a pioneer of painting outdoors from the 1820s, Corot inspired the Impressionists with his interpretation of light and nature, and here perhaps we see him being influenced by them in turn.