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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Bridge at Narni 1825 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Roman Forum from Farnese Gardens 1826 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Louvre |
"Indeed I was haunted all winter by an irresistible prevision of what Rome must be in declared spring. Certain charming places seemed to murmur: Ah, this is nothing! Come back at the right weeks and see the sky above us almost black with its excess of blue, and the new grass already deep, but still vivid, and the white roses tumble in odorous spray and the warm radiant air distill gold for the smelting-pot that the genius loci then dips his brush into before making play with it, in his inimitable way, for the general effect of complexion."
– Henry James, from Italian Hours (1909)
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Colosseum from Farnese Gardens 1826 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Rocks 1828 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Cathedral at Chartres 1830 oil on canvas Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot The Reader (wreathed with ivy) 1845 oil on canvas Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Landscape with Boy in White Shirt ca. 1855-60 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Bord de la Seine ca. 1845 oil on canvas Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Trees in a Marsh ca. 1855-60 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"The Yonne, bending gracefully, link after link, through a never-ending rustle of poplar trees, beneath lowly vine-clad hills, with relics of delicate woodland here and there, sometimes close at hand, sometimes leaving an interval of broad meadow, has all the lightsome characteristics of French river-side scenery on a smaller scale than usual, and might pass for the child's fancy of a river, like the rivers of the old miniature-painters, blue, and full to a fair green margin."
– Walter Pater, from Denys L'Auxerrois (1887)
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Wooded landscape with cows in a clearing ca. 1855 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Evening ca. 1855-60 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Solitude - Recollection of Vigen, Limousin 1866 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Church of Marissel near Beauvais 1866 oil on canvas Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Corot Bridge at Mantes ca. 1868-70 oil on canvas Louvre |
"[Roger] Fry compares Corot's canvas to the way music is created. He emphasizes how the simple appearances Corot perceived produced "mysteriously perfect chords of color in which every note gets a new meaning and resonance." Characteristic of Corot is the plastic unity of space, filled entirely with air and light. Harmony is achieved thanks to the subtle, minor and unconscious adjustments to common external objects, so inconspicuous that some observers do not even notice them. . . . The resemblance to "reality" is totally irrelevant for the mood the painting arouses – a mood "as detached from any actual experience as that of the purest music." "In short," according to Fry, "Corot creates here an entirely spiritual reality."
– Antoon Van den Braembussche, from Thinking Art (Springer, 2009)