DOI Heft:
No. 284 (November 1916)
DOI Artikel:Manson, James Bolivar: Some notes on the paintings of Lucien Pissarro
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24575#0071
The Paintings of Lucien Pissarro
"high view, fishpond" by lucien pissarro
Minds which are limited by strict rules must
expect to be annoyed at times. A painting on a
limited space involves certain conditions of design.
A composition must be self-contained, but these
rules exist in the artist's own mind and are part of
his personality. Inadequacy of composition has
been alleged against Impressionist painters as a
whole, and Pissarro has not been exempt from
this. Design is expressed by colour as much, if
not so obviously, as by line and mass.
When Lucien Pissarro first worked in England
in 1890 he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit
of what may be called lyrical Impressionism.
Probably no other painter ever had so strict a
training in the study of colour values—a study
which still absorbs him. He had practised pointil-
lisme for the sake of studying the most subtle
gradation and variety of natural colour effect.
Those early paintings have a depth of colour and
a realisation of atmospheric effect which are
unrivalled. The handling is sometimes minute.
The pictures are built up tone by tone with an
effect of breadth, and are radiant with colour,
light and atmosphere. The knowledge acquired
in these studies was invaluable. It gave him that
sureness of analysis, that exactitude in the matter
of colour values, which never fails him even in
the moments when he is most instinctive and sub-
conscious—and no painter is more subconscious
in his work. To work freely in this way an artist
must be completely master of his method. A well-
trained mind stored with the results of years of
study prompts the hand to the immediate ex-
pression on paper or canvas of the artist's feeling
and ideas. It is this intimate co-ordination of
hand and mind which gives to Pissarro's work a
distinctively personal feeling. In regard to this
faculty an ingenuous critic has said that Pissarro's
pictures have something of that quality which one
sees in the work of children : the power sincerely,
simply, subconsciously to express the essential
character of things. It is a rare gift, one which
63
"high view, fishpond" by lucien pissarro
Minds which are limited by strict rules must
expect to be annoyed at times. A painting on a
limited space involves certain conditions of design.
A composition must be self-contained, but these
rules exist in the artist's own mind and are part of
his personality. Inadequacy of composition has
been alleged against Impressionist painters as a
whole, and Pissarro has not been exempt from
this. Design is expressed by colour as much, if
not so obviously, as by line and mass.
When Lucien Pissarro first worked in England
in 1890 he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit
of what may be called lyrical Impressionism.
Probably no other painter ever had so strict a
training in the study of colour values—a study
which still absorbs him. He had practised pointil-
lisme for the sake of studying the most subtle
gradation and variety of natural colour effect.
Those early paintings have a depth of colour and
a realisation of atmospheric effect which are
unrivalled. The handling is sometimes minute.
The pictures are built up tone by tone with an
effect of breadth, and are radiant with colour,
light and atmosphere. The knowledge acquired
in these studies was invaluable. It gave him that
sureness of analysis, that exactitude in the matter
of colour values, which never fails him even in
the moments when he is most instinctive and sub-
conscious—and no painter is more subconscious
in his work. To work freely in this way an artist
must be completely master of his method. A well-
trained mind stored with the results of years of
study prompts the hand to the immediate ex-
pression on paper or canvas of the artist's feeling
and ideas. It is this intimate co-ordination of
hand and mind which gives to Pissarro's work a
distinctively personal feeling. In regard to this
faculty an ingenuous critic has said that Pissarro's
pictures have something of that quality which one
sees in the work of children : the power sincerely,
simply, subconsciously to express the essential
character of things. It is a rare gift, one which
63