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Pissarro
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Camille Pissarro was born on the island of St. Thomas in what were then the Danish West Indies to a French father and Creole mother in 1830. At the age of 11, Pissarro was sent to boarding school near Paris, where his talents for drawing and painting were noticed and nurtured.
As a young man, he travelled to Caracas with Danish artist Fritz Melbye who also lived in St. Thomas, and produced several watercolors and drawings. On his...
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Camille Pissarro was born on the island of St. Thomas in what were then the Danish West Indies to a French father and Creole mother in 1830. At the age of 11, Pissarro was sent to boarding school near Paris, where his talents for drawing and painting were noticed and nurtured.
As a young man, he travelled to Caracas with Danish artist Fritz Melbye who also lived in St. Thomas, and produced several watercolors and drawings. On his return from this trip in 1855, contrary to his parents’ wishes, the artist moved to Paris to study painting, working as an assistant in the studio of Melbye’s brother, Anton. In Paris, he studied the work of artists like Courbet, Millet and Corot, and took classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Academie Suisse. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot soon became his mentor, greatly influencing Pissarro’s style and choice of subject.
Pissarro exhibited at several of the Paris Salon’s annual shows, but his work was criticized for not having the traditional sentimental and literary approach, and even referred to as ‘vulgar’ for portraying what he saw rather than a beautified version of it. It was during this period that the artist met Monet, Cezanne and Guillaumin, all of whom agreed on the value of eschewing artifice and opulence in their painting, and that the idea of Impressionism gained ground.
In 1870 Pissarro moved to Norwood in England for one year, so his family might escape the Franco-Prussian war. There, he had the chance to observe English landscape painters, and painted several works depicting the surroundings of London himself. It was also in London that the artist met the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who continued to represent his work for several years.
Two years later, the artist moved back to Pontoise, outside Paris, where he kept in touch with the work of artists like Monet, Cezanne and Renoir. In 1873, to counter the Paris Salon, Pissarro co-established the Société Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs et Graveurs, comprising fifteen artists. The group held their first exhibition of Impressionist art a year later, shocking many academics and critics.
The years from 1874 until 1886 were very crucial in the history of the Impressionist movement, since several exhibitions of impressionist art were organized. Pissarro, often referred to as ‘the first Impressionist’, participated in all eight of them, and also held his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, in 1883.
Always experimenting with his oeuvre, Pissarro soon moved past Impressionism, painting several scenes of country life, populated by working peasants. Following a meeting with the pointillist painters Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Pissarro spent several years practicing his painting using this distinctive technique, often referred to as his Neo-Impressionist period.
Towards the end of his life, Pissarro moved between Paris, Rouen, Le Havre and Eragny, all of which figured in his work from the period, painting from windows when he could not go outdoors due to an chronic eye infection. The meadow in front of his house was a particular favourite subject. He tended to depict the same scene several times, reflecting different seasons of the year, times of the day, or angles of perspective. In fact, Pissarro was more interested in the atmosphere and feelings prompted by his works, rather than their actual image. Some of his later paintings are considered among his best works.
Today, Pissarro is hailed as one of the most prominent Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters, as well as a great mentor to artists like Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and his own son Lucien.
Camille Pissarro died in Paris in November 1903.
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Born
July 10, 1830
Charlotte Amalie, Danish West Indies
Died
November 13, 1903
Paris, France
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