Camille Pissarro was known even in his own time as the Father of Impressionism, and today he’s one of the movement’s most renowned figures. But the artist who is now so representative of Impressionistic painting was also quite different from the rest of his group. As a Caribbean-born, English-speaking Dutch national, Jew, and anarchist, Pissarro often felt like an outsider among his fellow artists, and in French society at large. Even though so many of his works are now considered canonical masterpieces, Pissarro’s tranquil, light-dappled views of Paris boulevards and the French countryside caused extreme controversy in their day, and the artist was troubled by professional and financial uncertainty until the end of his life.
Cover of “Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism”
Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism by Anka Muhlstein (Other Press) is a lively account of the artist’s unflagging determination in the face of great challenges. Pissarro’s story is intertwined with the story of Impressionism, a movement that — despite its undeniable popularity today — was roundly rejected in its time. Muhlstein details both histories deftly, tracing how Pissarro worked tirelessly from the fringes of a society that often culturally and commercially rejected him. The book makes us question how much we really know about even some of the most famous artists and art movements and reveals the unexpected complexities behind our sometimes faulty versions of art history.
Pissarro was born in 1830 in Saint Thomas (now the US Virgin Islands), a busy trading point where the artist was immersed in a unique mix of cultures. At age 21, he met an itinerant young Danish painter named Fritz Melbye, who played a pivotal role in opening art as a path for Pissarro. From 1852 to 1854, the two traveled in Venezuela, where they created artworks all around the country. Here Pissarro first developed his interest in depicting markets, crowds, and working people, subjects that would continue to appear in his future work.
The adventure was cut short when Pissarro received news of his younger brother’s sudden death. He endured working in his father’s goods warehouse for a year before setting sail to Paris in 1855. The city was in a vibrant moment of transition and was rapidly remaking itself under Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s hand. The painters Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix reigned supreme at the time, and Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were just starting their painting apprenticeships. It was a dynamic moment for the young artist to start his career.
Anka Muhlstein, © Bettina Strauss
An early victory came in 1859 when the influential Salon accepted one of Pissarro’s small landscape paintings. But when this success led nowhere, the artist continued to work, painting around the outskirts of Paris en plein air thanks to the proliferation of trains and oil paints in tubes. Pissarro’s innovative streak was encouraged by other pioneering artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Frédéric Bazille, and Berthe Morisot, and later by younger colleagues like Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat. However, the group’s innovations in technique and subject matter weren’t widely appreciated by the public.
Impressionists like Pissarro are now some of the most revered figures in recent Western art history. But Muhlstein’s book reveals how shockingly different the situation was for these same artists in their own time. From its beginnings, Impressionist art caused uproar wherever it was shown, and the vehement rancor from its critics is frankly astounding to read today. For example, Le Figaro’s Albert Wolff called the second Impressionist exhibition in the spring of 1876 “A terrifying spectacle of human vanity straying into the realms of insanity,” writing that “no sound mind” could paint like Pissarro and alleging that a young man was arrested after seeing the exhibition because — driven mad by the unorthodox art on view — “he took to biting passersby.”
Camille Pissarro, “Boulevard Montmartre at Night,” 1897, oil on canvas
Critical animosity was accompanied by commercial failure. Sales were so dismal that Pissarro and his friends lived desperately, often struggling to support themselves and their families. Today, pieces by Pissarro and his cohort fetch millions, but Muhlstein notes that around this time the Impressionists’ paintings’ frames were often worth more money than the artworks themselves. By 1879, Monet was so distraught that he wrote, “I’m absolutely sickened and demoralized … I completely relinquish the fight and any hope of succeeding, and no longer have the strength to work in such conditions.” Lucky for us, the artist eventually changed his mind and returned to the easel. Still, the Impressionists’ immense hardships faded slowly: Pissarro didn’t establish financial stability from his work until he was already in his 60s.
Pissarro wasn’t just a rebel in his artwork: he also went against the grain in his personal life. He shocked his well-to-do bourgeois Jewish family by falling in love with Julie Vellay, his mother’s Catholic, barely literate kitchen maid, who went on to bear him seven children. One of the highlights of the book is its attention to this resilient and scrappy woman known as Mother Pissarro by a young Henri Matisse. Vellay remained a steadfast wife and mother throughout the artist’s long trials and tribulations and unflinchingly offered her advice about his work. So many biographies of male artists push female partners to the margins or leave them out altogether, so Muhlstein’s careful and empathetic treatment of Vellay is refreshing.
The book details other fascinating chapters in Pissarro’s life including his exile in London, leftist political leanings, and role as a doting father and mentor (especially for his sons). The unlikely story behind Impressionism’s difficult origins is especially heartening for artists reading today, who are reminded that the artist’s struggle is a universal experience.
1 comment
Have to see about getting the book.