Studio: international art (30.1904)

The Etchings of Camille Pissarro

they might rightly be called the vox clamantis
in deserto of French art criticism. We all
know what a change has been effected since
then, a change for which we are in a great
measure indebted to Camille Pissarro, about
whom I have gathered a few biographical details,
hitherto unpublished.

Camille Pissarro was born in St. Thomas, in
the Antilles, in 1830. His father, a well-to-do
merchant, was able to send the youthful Camille
to Paris to study at the private boarding-school
kept by a certain M. Savari at Passy. Among
other subjects taught at such schools two or
three hours a week are, of course, devoted to arts
dagrement, as they are styled on the circulars.
Drawing was taught by M. Savari himself, and
he seems to have understood how the art of
painting should be taught better than it is
understood even now in other schools, for
when black-haired, brown-eyed Camille was
leaving France for the sunny Antilles, M. Savari
called after him, by way of good-bye, " Don't
forget to draw as many cocoa-nut palms as
you can from nature!" The good seed did
not fall on barren soil, for, on his return to
St. Thomas, Camille Pissarro would do nothing
but draw des cocotiers d'aprh la nature, and soon

"DANS LE liOIS " BY CAMILLE PISSARRO

60

" RUE DES ARPENTS A ROUEN " BY CAMILLE PISSARRO

his portfolios were not large enough to hold his
drawings. This is the anecdotal beginning of
impressionism. Unfortunately it will never be
possible to follow step by step the development
of Camille Pissarro's genius from its beginning,
for, when he was again in France, and living
at Louveciennes, he was obliged to hurry away
in hot haste, leaving his house in the. hands of
the Prussians who were advancing to besiege
Paris. In that house he left not only his coco-
tiers d'aprh la nature, but many other drawings
and oil paintings which were never seen again.

The art of painting begins at daybreak, and
ends with the moment when the light of the
sun, moon, and stars is quenched, or where
the light produced by man does not reach.
Artificial light has made nature richer by many
phenomena, and by this the limits of the
art of painting are made broader. Light is
essential — the most important principle of
the art of painting; for it plays an important
part in illusions of space, as well as in sur-
face, harmony, and richness of colours in a
picture. Thanks to the variety of light, the
exterior world has not for a painter either