I know that Shishkin traveled in Europe, at least Eastern Europe, but I don’t know if he had any contact with the artists who painted in the Fontainebleau area.

For readers who aren’t already familiar with him, see my post on Ivan Shishkin.

Takeyce

I think an argument can be made that Corot’s trip to Italy could also be seen as the beginnings of widespread plein air painting, but he actually started to paint outdoors in Fontainebleau before his trip to Italy.

I’d be willing to bet that there are a lot of wonderful early Monets like this in the basements of museums; relegated there because they have a “bright” one on display instead.

Those are beautiful paintings. I love opening something up and falling in love with a painting, and I was shocked to see 2 great landscapes that are new to me. Especially one by Monet… it’s not exactly like he suffers from a lack of attention on his paintings.

It is fun to look back and see the roots of impressionism in paintings from this group, as landscape became a subject in its own right. Some of the first paintings that made me want to work on the landscape were Corot’s. They were small paintings he did on a trip to Italy. I saw them in a book, I think called “In The Light of Italy.” His plein air paintings had simplicity in composition (masses of shapes) along with a great sense of daylight. I’ll look forward to your post on him

I’m planning a dedicated post on Corot, in the meanwhile, Artcyclopedia has plenty of links:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/corot_jean-baptiste-camille.html