OUR JOURNAL COVER NOSSA CAPA
Pissarro: painter of the land
Camille Pissarro was born on July 10, 1830, at St. Thomas, an island in the Caribbean Sea, to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a French Jew of Portuguese descent, and Rachel Manzano, a mixed-race woman. Pissarro revealed a precocious talent for drawing, but was not encouraged by his parents, who owned a hardware store in Charlotte Amalie Harbor and wanted him to become a trader.
At 11, Pissarro was sent to France to continue his education. He returned to St. Thomas at 17, and began working with his father. He could not bear the hard routine for long, so he left everything and traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, in 1852. In 1855, his father realized that there was no way to suppress Pissarro's talent and helped him go back to France, where he began studying and seriously working on academic painting.
In 1857, Pissarro met Monet, who was just 17 then. As both had received a similar education, shared tastes and had resembling temperaments, they were on the same wavelength, establishing a deep friendship.
In 1859, his first picture, Landscape at Montmorency, was displayed at the Paris Salon. The paintings he submitted in the next two years were rejected, though.
In 1861, Pissarro married Julie Vellay, with whom he had seven children. In 1864 and 1866, his pictures were again included in the main exhibit in Paris and praised by critics. In that last year he moved to Pontoise, in the Vexin region, where, among comings and goings, he lived many years and painted the familiar landscapes he so much loved, consolidating his plein-air painting.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), he fled to Surrey, England, returning at the end of the war, with lighter, more vibrant and brighter colors. He lived 10 years of intense creation, little recognition and serious financial problems. Just in 1882, after the successful exhibit of independent impressionists, Pissarro's artistic life began to change for the better. In that phase, having contact with Seurat and Paul Signac, he produced fresh ideas, including new techniques such as pointillism or divisionism.
For years Pissarro suffered from an eye infection and, due to other health problems, in 1890 he definitely moved to Eragny-Bazincourt, leaving the moist climate of Pontoise. In 1892, his commercial and artistic triumph was confirmed, with a successful individual exhibit. In the 1890's, he abandoned pointillism and traveled around Europe, searching for new landscapes. In his last years, he painted behind windows, protected from moisture, cold and winds.
Pissarro, the poet of fields and villages of France, streets and inhabitants of Paris, died on November 13, 1903.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
05 Jan 2011 -
Date of issue
Dec 2010
