b. Paris, 1796 - d. Paris, 1875
Ponds in Ville d'Avray, oil on paper mounted on canvas

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, a 19th century French master of landscape painting, studied under Jean Victor Bertin at the ?cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His greatest teacher was, however, nature, particularly Ile-de-France and the surroundings of Paris. On his visits to Italy in the late 1820s, Corot discovered the effects of clear and bright light, but back in France he resumed painting the dawns and twilights of Ille-de-France. In his notebook, Corot wrote about his guiding principles, including this injunction: "…keep in view the mass, the whole, that has caught one's eye, and never lose the first impression which quickened your emotion!" To ensure homogeneity of texture, Corot added a little white paint to all his colors, even to black. Subtle gradations of gray, rhythmically applied, endowed his works with a musical quality. Corot was greatly esteemed by younger painters and critics. The Impressionists were deeply indebted to him, and Corot backed their paintings when he became a member of the Salon Jury.

b. St. Thomas, Caribbean Islands, 1830 - d. Paris, 1903

Corner in the Garden, Snow, Éragny, 1892, oil on canvas

Pissarro, a French master of Jewish origin, was sent as a young man to study business in Paris, but he was more interested in art and therefore enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in 1855. Later, he studied at the Académie Suisse in Paris, where he met Paul Cézanne. Pissarro also took lessons from Camille Corot, who exerted a strong influence on his painting. In 1870, he was in London, where he met Paul Durand-Ruel, who later supported the Impressionists and became Pissarro's patron and dealer. In 1874, Pissarro took part in the first exhibition of the group that was later called the Impressionists. He was the most steadfast of all its members, the only one to take part in all of the eight exhibitions of the group.

b. Paris, 1863 - d. Finistere, 1927

Still Life with Onions, 1896, oil on canvas Serusier, a French artist and art theoretician, studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1888, he stayed in Pont-Aven, where he met Gaugin. Back in Paris, he formed the Nabis, a group of artists who combined Symbolist aesthetics with Art Nouveau undulating lines and Impressionist colors. Due to his theoretical inclinations, Sérusier was more conscious of his attitude toward pictorial structure than others in the group. For him, art was the sanctification of nature and the picture plane was "essentially a flat surface covered by colors arranged in a certain order." He was the spokesman for Symbolist aesthetics and its most consistent representative.

Head of an old Woman or Woman with a White Head-dress, 1856, oil on canvasb. Paris, 1832 - d. Paris, 1883

Édouard Manet, a major French master of the 19th century, studied for six years at the École des Beaux Arts in the atelier of Thomas Couture. Manet graduated in 1856. He had a decisive preference for Old Masters and modern life, and gradually introduced modern aesthetics and bold techniques into his paintings. He replaced the tonal gradations of academic practice with vivid contrasts of colors. The Impressionists greatly admired him for his ability to free himself from conventions of literary and moral statements and for his bright colors.

b. Smilovichi, near Smolensk, 1893 - d. Paris, 1943
Path in Forest with Two Children, oil on canvas

Soutine, a French painter of Jewish origin, came from an extremely poor family. At the age of 13, he ran away to Minsk, where he took a few drawing lessons. In 1910, he went to study art in Vilna, where he worked for a living in a photography shop. Through the help of a patron, he moved to Paris in 1913, and began to study art under Fernand Cormon at the École des Beaux-Arts.