Camille Pissarro

1830 - 1903
France

Camille Pissarro was born on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and did not arrive in Paris until he was twenty-five. He studied first at the Beaux-Arts and then with Corot, whom he greatly admired and whose style influenced his earliest works. Pissarro became interested in Courbet Courbet, who was more sympathetic to the younger artists than was Corot. Some of Courbet's vigorous realism may be found in Pissarro's works of about 1863.

A painter of nature, Pissarro was happy only in the country, and he settled in Louveciennes with his family in 1866. Here he met and worked with Cezanne and remained until 1871, then with Monet he fled to England to escape the German invasion. It was during this visit that Daubigny introduced Pissarro to Paul Durand-Ruel, who became his art dealer and the man whose name is inseparably linked with the presentation of the Impressionists to the world. Upon his return to France, Pissarro (who had sold little and was to remain financially unsuccessful throughout most of his life), found his house sacked and more than a thousand canvases destroyed by indifferent soldiers.

Undeterred in his desire to paint, he moved to Pontoise, where Cezanne joined him (1872-74) and where he later worked with Gauguin. Neither of these two masters ever forgot him and acknowledged their debt to his brilliant instruction until the end of their lives.

Pissarro's first completely Impressionist period, between 1870 and 1880, is characterized by a palette much lighter than his original one, by a small comma-shaped brushstroke; and by a shimmering golden or silvery light that bathes the soft colors of his landscapes.

Not quite satisfied with this own work, Pissarro experimented with Seurat's Pointillism between 1886 and 1890 but abandoned this technique when he found his work becoming lifeless. Strengthened by this experimentation, from 1890 until his death, Pissarro produced perfectly drawn and composed paintings that were rich in color, solid in volume, and subtle in harmonies.

The most classical and humanistic of the Impressionists, Pissarro was extremely important not only for his own quietly serene art but for stimulating Cezanne's search for solidity, for contributing to Gauguin's early training, and for his advice and counsel to the other younger members of the Impressionist group.