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Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was born in Paris in 1796; he died in Paris in 1875, the year after the First Impressionist Exhibition. The freedom and sensitivity with which he responded to the changing moods of landscape put him at the forefront of the plein-air artists of the Barbizon School, and make him perhaps the most important precursor of Impressionism. Corot's leaves dance in the canvas before your eyes, caught in an ever-changing light. The clearest path from Corot to Impressionism can be seen in the work of Camille Pissarro. Pissarro listed himself as Corot's pupil in the catalogues to the Paris Salons of 1864 and 1865. One of the four radical young artists who teamed up at the Acad�mie Suisse in 1859 - Pissarro, Claude Monet, Armand Guillaumin, Paul C�zanne - Camille Pissarro was the only artist to participate in all eight Impressionist exhibitions in Paris. Just as Corot had been free with his help, advice, and encouragement to the young Pissarro, and to Eug�ne Boudin

It's now three years since I first posted about Marcel Roux, and I thought I had probably said all I had to say. But two recent acquisitions make me want to revisit this passionate and brilliant man. The first is one of Roux's rare individual etchings, L'�chou�e, as printed in the revue Byblis in 1923, after Roux's death, in brown ink on Lafuma wove paper. Most of Marcel Roux's original etchings were conceived and published in series, such as La Danse Macabre, Les Passions, Filles de Joie, and Les Sept Paroles; whether the enigmatic and dramatic L'�chou�e was intended to stand alone or to form part of a linked cycle, I do not know. I have to admit I don't quite know how to translate the title - the verb �chouer means to fail, but I think this man may be intended to be shipwrecked, in which case the translation would be something like Washed Up; help from fluent French speakers will be gratefully received. No date is given, but I believe all Roux's etchi