International studio (60.1916/1917)

The Paintings of Lucien Pissarro

cannot be cultivated, undreamed of in the philo-
sophy of those who paint with one eye on the
public taste and are concerned, at the moment of
working, chiefly with how Turner saw or what
Constable did. This expression of a simple and
sincere mind (how rare in these days of Vorticism
and other depravities ! ) which appears so naive
has nothing in common with that self-conscious
naivete (save the mark !) introduced by Mr. Roger
Fry under the generic title of Post-Impressionism
and practised to-day by so many smart young men
who try to draw like children and succeed only in
painting like navvies.
Pissarro’s method is admirably adapted to the
realisation of his vision. In fact it is moulded
and developed by his ideas: it has grown according
to his needs and is still growing. The relationship
of the technique to the idea (though these things
are truly inseparable) is of paramount importance.
Certain ideas can only be expressed by a certain
technique, for the expres¬
sion and the idea are one.
The cultivation of a special
method for its own sake—
the vice of later modern
art—is a symptom of deca¬
dence.
In 1893 Pissarro had
settled in Epping to the
painting of landscapes and
trees. It was a period of
simple joy in Nature, of
delight in the varying effects
of light and atmosphere
whether suffused with sun¬
light or refracted by morn¬
ing mists. These pictures
have that quality of intimite
which is characteristic of
Impressionist painting. A
typical painting of this
period, The Garden Gate
(1894) possesses the
qualities of great art. Its
ingredients are of the
simplest—the garden path,
the white gate, and the
trees beyond bathed in the
sunlight. It is a song of
the morning in which truth
and beauty are one. This
picture was only one of
many. The Yellow Tree
(1894) and An Essex Hall
64

of the following year were poems in colour, and
there were others too numerous to be named here.
The gradual development of his work has led,
through a closer and more compact organisation
of colour values, to the expression of greater
solidity and a more marked definition of planes,
possibly with less saturation. It has become more
intellectual. It is impossible here to trace Pissarro’s
development through all its stages. The pattern or
composition is, in his work, an integral part of the
colour and depends upon it, but the subtlety of his
colour-expression practically defies reproduction.
Nor has it been possible, in these brief notes,
to consider his work as a wood-engraver and
designer. The “ Eragny Press,” for which he
designed the type and where he prints his beautiful
books, is famous in both hemispheres. His work
in that direction would demonstrate his incompar-
able taste in a manner which would reveal him
as an artist and creator of the first rank.


“rowemount, cold harbour”

BY LUCIEN PISSARRO