Painting exchange: Entrance to the Wood

When I first saw this oil on canvas depicting what appears to be a rather mundane scene from a park in Ville-d’Avray in the suburbs of Paris, I was quite struck as much by what it lacked as by what it had. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s Entrance to the Wood has four things that I appreciate greatly. It takes a moment from everyday life and elevates it to art, not relying on spectacle, pomp or show. It plays with light expertly. Its composition forces your eyes to wander around the canvas. And, perhaps my favourite, I think it is a murder mystery. First, the moment it captures: a path through the woods, tread by hundreds of people or more every single day, neither observed or absorbed, and not much more than a literal means to an end. This is the sort of thing that I find fascinating that most of us will simply walk past because our senses have gotten too used to it, too desensitised to the banality of it all. Corot’s artistic tendencies shine in this aspect because it is no small feat…