The Barbizon school (circa 1830 – 1870) of painters is named after the village of Barbizon near Fontainebleau Forest, France where the artists gathered. The leaders of the Barbizon school were Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-Francois Daubigny, and other members included Jules Dupré, Narcisse Virgilio Diaz, Henri Harpignies, and Félix Ziem.

In the early 19th century the French art establishment was quite formalised following the tradition of Jacques-Louis David. Out of this grew the romantic movement, as exemplified by Théodore Géricault, Richard Bonington, and Eugène Delacroix.

In 1824 the Salon de Paris exhibited works of John Constable. His rural scenes influenced some of the younger artists of the time, moving them to abandon formalism and to draw inspiration directly from nature. Natural scenes became the subjects of their paintings rather than mere backdrops to dramatic events.

During the Revolutions of 1848 the group gathered at Barbizon to follow Constable's ideas, making nature the subject of their paintings.

One of them, Millet, extended the idea from landscape to figures — peasant figures, scenes of peasant life, and work in the fields. In The Gleaners (1857), Millet portrays three peasant women working at the harvest. There is no drama and no story told, merely three peasant women in a field.

Both Rousseau (1867) and Millet (1875) died at Barbizon.

See also

• Gustave Courbet