Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro was a French painter and graphic artist, one of the four first representatives of Impressionism. He painted landscapes, still lifes and portraits. He also worked in the styles of Divisionism (Pointillism) and Post-Impressionism.

In his childhood, the artist was fond of landscape painting and drawing. He was a disciple of Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Gustave Courbet. The young artist preferred to paint lighted objects in the air. From 1866 onward, Pissarro’s style became more distinct. His palette became lighter.

The basis of the artist’s paintings was a space, permeated with sunlight and light air. His works combine traditional landscape scenes, unusual light and a technique of drawing illuminated objects. The paintings of the mature Pissarro were created with dense strokes and filled with the physical sensation of light, which he aspired to express. Pissarro also did some paintings with watercolour and created many etchings and lithographs.

Key ideas:

– Works that have made Pissarro famous are a combination of traditional landscape themes and a kind of brushstroke in the drawing of light. Tangibly dense swabs give a sense of light or fog.

– Camille Pissarro loved landscape painting. However, he paid no less attention to the drawing.

– Air, as well as light, were the leading themes in Pissarro’s pictures from the very beginning. He carefully learnt the tints of objects to depict them.

– The artist stood for the idea of “the art for the art”. “Any art is anarchic if it is beautiful and professes kindness,” he said. Through his works, he sought to share his emotions with the world.

– Pissarro proved that being a peasant is not necessary to express all the beauty of the fields in the picture.

– According to him, a beautiful work of art was already a challenge to the bourgeois taste.

– As an avant-gardist, he rejected bourgeois society and power and admired human personality.

– The artist was optimistic and believed in the early arrival of an anarchist society in which people freed from religious and capitalistic ideas would be able to appreciate his art. Anarchism allowed him to express his understanding of beauty.
In the 1860s, Pissarro’s palette became brighter. The central theme of his works was space full of sunlight. By the end of the decade, he had created his own confidently firm style.