Barbizon is a small 19th-century town on the southern outskirts of Paris. Its quiet, elegant beauty once drew a group of artists weary of city life to this picturesque town to realise their artistic ideals, and so gave birth to the Barbizon School, the forerunner of Impressionism, whose aim was to "turn to nature and paint from the scene itself", and which had a great influence on the later emergence of Impressionism.

Today it is also known as the home of art, of painters or of Impressionism. The whole town is like one large museum, where you can follow in the footsteps of many great artists, such as Théodore Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-François Millet.

The town still keeps its small-town charm today. Strolling along the cobbled streets, you will find many artists' studios, inns and streets full of flowers, as well as many local galleries showing the Impressionist paintings that were once all the rage; everything here preserves the splendour of the 19th century.