French Artist Communities Talk 1: The Barbizon School

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.
Tickets are £8 each. Booking is essential.

With Juliet Heslewood, author and art historian.

The first in a series of four talks examining four communities of French artists: The Barbizon school, the Painters of Pont Aven. Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, and The Fauves – the ‘Wild Beasts’ of the Mediterranean.

Barbizon is a small village on the edge of Fontainebleau forest – a short train journey from Paris. In the mid-19th century several artists settled there to paint their surroundings, working mostly ‘en plein air’ out of doors rather than in studios, with oil paint now conveniently portable, available in tubes.

Millet observed the peasant community, Corot responded to the forest’s trees and rocky ground, and Daubigny found beauty in twilight hours.

Each artist created of Barbizon their own version of nature and, in hindsight, their significant contribution to landscape painting led the way towards Impressionism.

There are four talks in this series: French Artist Communities.
Each talk needs to be booked separately:

Talk 1 – The Barbizon School – Sat 15 Nov 2025
Talk 2 – The Pont Aven Painters – Sat 13 Dec 2025
Talk 3 – Van Gogh & Gauguin – Sat 24 Jan 2026
Talk 4 – The Fauves – Sat 21 Feb 2026