Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

By Klaus H. Karl

Camille Pissarro was a pivotal figure of Impressionism, perhaps the world’s most famous art movement. He also tackled different forms of Neoimpressionism, while maintaining very personal characteristics in his art all throughout his life. A key figure in the Impressionist movement and a participant in every one of their exhibitions, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was considered the patriarch of the group. Born in the Danish West Indies, he travelled to Venezuela, and studied with Corot in France, who influencedhis early works and who triggered his passion to paint outdoors. His style evolved as he progressed in life, influenced too by the debateswith his fellow-painters.After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, he moved to England, but his style of painting, which was a forerunnerof the"Impressionism", did not do very well.Like Degas, Pissarro was a great draughtsman. His representations of rural and urban life are often closely intertwined with his social concerns and anarchist beliefs. A quintessential artist ahead of his time, Pissaro sold very few works during his lifetime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parkstone International
• Release date: Apr 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781683256762

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Self-Portrait (Camille Pissarro, A Self-Portrait), c. 1890

Eetching (zinc) 18.7 x 17.7 cm. Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Biography

1830: Jacob Camille Pissarro is born in St Thomas in the West Indies, to French Jewish parents.

1842: He is sent to a boarding school just outside Paris to receive an early education, where his first signs of artistic talent become apparent.

1847: Returns home to St Thomas to work in the family business, although he devotes much of his free time to drawing and sketching.

1852: Having little interest in the family business, Pissarro, accompanied by Danish painter Fritz Melbye, heads to Venezuela, where he works as an artist for two years.

1855: Arrives in Paris where he settles down to live, and visits the Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair), which includes a large art section. He is impressed by Jean-Baptise Camille Corot’s landscape paintings, and begins studying at such institutions as the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Académie Suisse, where he forms a friendship with Monet.

1859: Sends works to the official Salon, where he is admitted to exhibit.

1860: Moves in with Julie Vellay, his future wife.

1861: Meets Guillaumin and Cézanne at the Charles Académie Suisse.

1863: Gets rejected by the Salon, and exhibits at the Salon des Refusés.

1866: Pissarro and his family settle down in Pontoise, where he would work frequently with Cézanne. During this time, he fully develops his independent Impressionist style. Meets Manet in Café Guerbois in Paris. Gets his works admitted to the Salon. Pissarro is singled out in a review of the Salon by the young literary figure Emile Zola.

1869: Pissarro and his family move to Louveciennes.

1870: Participates in his last official Salon. During the Franco-Prussian war, Pissarro resides in Brittany for a short period, and then seeks refuge in London with Monet. He leaves all his paintings behind in Louveciennes, most of which will be destroyed.

1871: Marries Julie Vellay, with whom he has seven children, five of which would later become artists.

1872: Forms a collaboration with Cézanne, which marks an important part of art history.

1874: Takes part in the first Impressionist Exhibition, of which he was a key instigator. Pissarro is the only artist of the group to participate in all eight of these exhibitions. Joins Monet in a project to organise independent Impressionist exhibitions.

1876: Paints The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise. He is among the first artists to divide colours, which is evident in this painting. Eugène Murer, the owner of a restaurant on the Boulevard Voltaire, asks Renoir and Pissarro to paint the interior of the restaurant’s dining-room, where he would feed groups of artists every week, free of charge.

1880: He begins to add figures to his work, giving them a more decorative character.

1884: Pissarro is financially stable enough to buy a house in Éragny, where he will remain until his death.

1885: Experiments with new techniques and approaches, as he meets with a younger generation of artists, searching for fresh ideas. He is particularly attracted to Seurat’s style, which he tries to adopt, but with limited success.

1892: Large retrospective of Pissarro’s works, finally allowing him to gain international recognition.

1903: November 13th, Pissarro dies in Paris at the age of seventy-three.

The prescient title of one of Claude Monet’s (1840-1926) paintings shown in 1874 in the first exhibition of the Impressionists, or as they called themselves then, the Société anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs (the Anonymous Society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers), was Impressionism: Sunrise. Monet had gone painting in his childhood hometown of Le Havre to prepare for the event, eventually selecting his best Havre landscapes for display. Edmond Renoir, journalist and brother of Renoir the painter, compiled the catalogue. He criticised Monet for the uniform titles of his works, for the painter had not come up with anything more interesting than View of Le Havre. Among these Havre landscapes was a canvas painted in the early morning