Everything about Pissarro totally explained
Camille Pissarro (
July 10 1830 –
November 13 1903) was a
French Impressionist painter. His importance resides not only in his visual contributions to
Impressionism and
Post-Impressionism, but also in his patriarchal standing among his colleagues, particularly
Paul Cézanne and
Paul Gauguin.
Early life and work
Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro was born in
Charlotte Amalie,
St. Thomas, to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a
Portuguese Sephardic Jew, and Rachel Manzana-Pomié, from the
Dominican Republic. Pissarro lived in St. Thomas until age 12, when he went to a boarding school in
Paris. He returned to St. Thomas where he drew in his free time. Pissarro was attracted to political
anarchy, an attraction that may have originated during his years in St. Thomas. In 1852, he traveled to
Venezuela with the
Danish artist
Fritz Melbye. In 1855, Pissarro left for Paris, where he studied at various academic institutions (including the
École des Beaux-Arts and
Académie Suisse) and under a succession of masters, such as
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,
Gustave Courbet, and
Charles-François Daubigny. Corot is sometimes considered Pissarro's most important early influence;
Pissarro listed himself as Corot’s pupil in the catalogues to the
1864 and
1865 Paris Salons.
His finest early works (See Jalais Hill, Pontoise,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York)
(External Link
) are characterized by a broadly painted (sometimes with palette knife) naturalism derived from
Courbet, but with an incipient Impressionist palette.
Pissarro married Julie Vellay, a maid in his mother's household. Of their eight children, one died at birth and one daughter died aged nine. The surviving children all painted, and
Lucien, the oldest son, became a follower of
William Morris.
The London years
The
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 compelled Pissarro to flee his home in
Louveciennes in September 1870; he returned in June of 1871 to find that the house, and along with it many of his early paintings, had been destroyed by Prussian soldiers. Initially his family was taken in by a fellow artist in
Montfoucault, but by December of 1870 they'd taken refuge in London and settled at Westow Hill in
Upper Norwood (today better known as
Crystal Palace, near
Sydenham). A
Blue Plaque currently marks the site of the house on the building at 77a Westow Hill.
Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, we can glimpse back to the days when Sydenham was a small satellite town recently connected to the capital by the arrival of the railway. One of the most appreciated of these paintings is a view of
St Bartholomew’s Church at the end of Lawrie Park Avenue, commonly known as
The Avenue, Sydenham, in the collection of the
London National Gallery. Twelve oil paintings date to his stay in Upper Norwood and are listed and illustrated in the catalogue raisonne prepared jointly by his fifth child Ludovic-Rodolphe Pissarro and Lionello Venturi and published in 1939. These paintings include
Norwood Under the Snow, and
Lordship Lane Station, views of
The Crystal Palace relocated from
Hyde Park,
Dulwich College, Sydenham Hill, All Saints Church, and a lost painting of St. Stephen’s Church.
Whilst in
Upper Norwood, Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer
Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his ‘London’ paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of
French Impressionism.
In 1890 Pissarro returned to England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in 1892, painting in
Kew Gardens and
Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he produced several oils of
Bedford Park,
Chiswick. For more details of his British visits, see Nicholas Reed,
"Camille Pissarro at Crystal Palace" and
"Pissarro in West London", published by Lilburne Press.
Art and legacy
Known as the "Father of Impressionism", Pissarro painted rural and urban
French life, particularly landscapes in and around
Pontoise, as well as scenes from
Montmartre. His mature work displays an empathy for peasants and laborers, and sometimes evidences his radical political leanings. He was a mentor to
Paul Cézanne and
Paul Gauguin and his example inspired many younger artists, including Californian Impressionist
Lucy Bacon.
Pissarro's influence on his fellow Impressionists is probably still underestimated; not only did he offer substantial contributions to Impressionist theory, but he also managed to remain on friendly, mutually respectful terms with such difficult personalities as
Edgar Degas,
Cézanne and
Gauguin. Pissarro exhibited at all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions. Moreover, whereas
Monet was the most prolific and emblematic practitioner of the Impressionist style, Pissarro was nonetheless a primary developer of Impressionist technique.
Pissarro experimented with
Neo-Impressionist ideas between 1885 and 1890. Discontented with what he referred to as "romantic Impressionism," he investigated
Pointillism which he called "scientific Impressionism" before returning to a purer
Impressionism in the last decade of his life.
In March
1893, in Paris, Gallery
Durand-Ruel organized a major exhibition of 46 of Pissarro's works along with 55 others by
Antonio de La Gandara. But while the critics acclaimed Gandara, their appraisal of Pissarro's art was less enthusiastic.
Pissarro died in
Éragny-sur-Epte on either
November 12 or
November 13,
1903 and was buried in
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. On his tomb it reads
12 November 1903.
During his lifetime, Camille Pissarro sold few of his paintings. By
2005, however, some of his works were selling in the range of
U.S. $2 to 4 million.
Descendants and family
Camille's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, is currently the Head Curator of Drawing and Painting at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His great-granddaughter, Lélia, is a successful painter and resides in London. From the only daughter of Camille, - Jeanne Pissarro, other painters include Henri Bonin-Pissarro also knowns as BOPI (1918-2003) and Claude Bonin-Pissarro (born 1921), who is the father of Frédéric Bonin-Pissarro (born 1964).
Resources
==
Further Information
Get more info on 'Pissarro'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://camille_pissarro.totallyexplained.com">Camille Pissarro Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
