Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 'A Flood', probably 1870-5

A river runs from the left edge of this painting to the bottom right corner. A bank rises gently towards the right, on which is grouped a clump of trees. A lone figure dressed in a red shawl and bright yellow hat stands motionless under the leaning tree. In the centre a group of houses with steep gabled roofs stands amid a further group of trees. These buildings, the spindly trees with their soft, undefined foliage and the limited palette are all features of Corot’s late landscapes painted in the studio, many of which were based on memories of real places, and often a fusion of different locations.

Here the pervading silvery grey tonality is particularly striking, the restrained use of colour and the numerous reflections in the river making it hard to decipher the line between water and land. The handling is also very typical of Corot’s mature style. The whole is quickly and generally thinly painted, with the thickest paint in the sky. As was his custom, Corot painted this part of the landscape last, bringing it down over the roofs of the houses, in one case obscuring the roof entirely. He also added tree trunks and branches at a very late stage. A randomly placed floating silver birch trunk hovers to the right of the principal tree, not appearing to be anchored to the ground in any way.