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for CAMILLE PISSARRO
CAMILLE PISSARRO
1830-1903
(b Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, Danish Virgin Islands, 10 July 1830; d Paris, 13 Nov 1903).
Painter and printmaker. He was the only painter to exhibit in all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions held between 1874 and 1886, and he is often regarded as the 'father' of the movement. He was by no means narrow in outlook, however, and throughout his life remained as radical in artistic matters as he was in politics. Thadée Natanson wrote in 1948: 'Nothing of novelty or of excellence appeared that Pissarro had not been among the first, if not the very first, to discern and to defend.' The significance of Pissarro's work is in the balance maintained between tradition and the avant-garde. Octave Mirbeau commented: 'M. Camille Pissarro has shown himself to be a revolutionary by renewing the art of painting in a purely working sense; at the same time he has remained a purely classical artist in his love for exalted generalizations, his passion for nature and his respect for worthwhile traditions.'
Pissarro's extensive correspondence reveals the sphere of his influence and the steadfastness of his character. Mary Cassatt is reported to have said that Pissarro 'was such a teacher that he could have taught stones to draw correctly'. Cézanne called him 'humble and colossal'. The intrinsic quality of Pissarro's work has never been in doubt, but equally it has never enjoyed the universal acclaim associated with other Impressionist painters. Counter-balancing this is the high regard in which he was held by artists of different generations, his appearance and his manner prompting contemporaries to make comparisons with such biblical figures as Abraham (George Moore), Moses (Matisse) and even God the Father (both Cézanne and Thadée Natanson).
© Oxford University Press 2007
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