Camille Pissarro

I have always been interested in the impressionist style of art, especially the works of Camille Pissarro. When making my essay selection I took this under consideration and chose this great French impressionist. Impressionism was the most important Art movement of the nineteenth century, having a great influence on the development of Modern Art. The name impressionism itself comes from a painting ‘Impression sunrise’ created by Claude Monet. Impressionism consisted of landscapes, seascapes, snow scenes, ballet dancers, horses, everyday life and still life but the most common themes were seascapes and landscapes. 1863 was considered to be the start of Impressionism. However the name of the group did not appear until 1874, when the first exhibition was held. Jacob Camille Pissarro was born on July 10, 1830, to French Jewish parents on the West Indies island of St. Thomas. In 1841 he was sent to school in Paris where he created his first drawings. By 1847 he returned to St. Thomas to work for his father which he did not like and consequently ran away to Caracas, Venezuela, for 2 years to paint. In 1855 his father finally allowed him to study art in Paris. He became friends with Monet, Cezanne and Guillaumin and played a key role in the development of Impressionism. He was the only artist to show in all 8 of the Impressionist exhibitions. For him Impressionism was a movement which allowed artistic emancipation. He believed strongly in free thought and speech. Before he introduced figures into his work in 1880, giving them a more decorative character, his paintings resembled most those of Monet. Later on Pissarro was attracted to Seurat 's Pointillism and saw it as a logical development of Impressionism. “Two Young Peasant Women.” The young laborers by virtue if their size, placement, and quiet dignity, dominate the landscape setting: an open field near the artist 's house at Eragny. Pissarro wanted to preserve the values of agrarian society which were threatened

References: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pissarro/ http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/pissarro/home.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro/ http://www.abcgallery.com/P/pissaro/pissaro.html http://www.renoirinc.com/biography/artists/pissarro.htm http://www.impressionniste.net/pissarro_camille.htm http://www.guggenheimcollection.org