DOI Heft:
No. 326 (May 1920)
DOI Artikel:Manson, James Bolivar: Camille Pissarro
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21360#0089
CAMILLE PISSARRO. BY J. B.
MANSON. 0aad£)
CAMILLE PISSARRO was the great-
est of the French Impressionist
painters, even if he were not, as some
painters have held, the most artistic. He
was so much more than a painter ; he was
a great man. His art was the expression of
his greatness as a man, which is why, to
those who really know it and who have lived
with it, his work is so satisfying and so in-
exhaustible. It conveys something of the
elusive feeling of the infinity of life itself.
He was a pagan in his worship of nature,
and keenly sympathetic in his love of
humanity and his interest in any form of
human activity. Even in his youthful days
he had what amounted to a passion for
expression, and in his endeavour to realize
the utmost he went further and deeper than
most artists, and, in some directions,
further than any other artist. He may at
times have strained his means in the
attempt to give all that was in him to give ;
but no form of plastic art could adequately
express the depth of his personality. He
gave so much, and yet one is always
conscious in his work that there was still so
much in reserve. He never, as is the habit
of modern painters, cultivated the means
for its own sake, it was useful to him only
so far as it achieved his end. Thus his
technique, especially in his later work, is
original because it is so intimately personal.
His work is never marked by that facile
brilliancy of handling which so takes the
eye and gains the price. He made no com-
promise, and cared nothing for the ready
applause given to mere cleverness and
charm of paint. That is why it has been
said, and wrongly said, that his work is less
artistic than that of some of his confreres,
Monet for example. 0000
He was supremely an artist, for his
technique was always the most fitting
method of expressing his intuition ; it was
inseparable from it, and there was, conse-
quently, versatility in his method, for each
mood, each vision was expressed in its own
way. He was fortunate in having had no
academic training ; from the moment he
first started to draw he went direct to
nature and learnt for himself how to express
what he felt. 0 0 0 0
LXXIX. No. 326.—May 1920
Camille Pissarro was born at St. Thomas,
in the Danish West Indies, in 1830. His
father was a merchant who regarded an
artistic career for his son with disfavour.
After a general education in Paris, Camille,
much against his inclination, was put into
the office at St. Thomas. However, he
followed the advice given him by his school-
master in Paris, and drew cocoanut-trees
and anything else that was handy. As luck
would have it, Fritz Melbye, a Danish
painter, called at St. Thomas in 1852 while
on his way to Venezuela to make studies of
the flora there for the Danish Government.
He met the young Pissarro, encouraged his
aspirations, and finally suggested that he
should accompany him to Venezuela as
assistant. Leaving a note for his family,
Pissarro eloped with his new friend, and
some of the studies of South American
plants now in the National Museum in
Denmark are the work of Pissarro. In
1855 ^e family proceeded to Paris, where
Camille joined them. Artistic matters were
then, as probably they always are, some-
what lively in the French capital, for, in
reply to a letter from Pissarro describing
his experiences, Melbye wrote (in English)
to him from Caracas in 1856 : “ I am very
glad to know that you are in Paris . . . the
romantic, moderate, and realistic or ideal-
istic parties that you mention are fighting
for the septer [sic] and disputing their
rights, must give a most animating impulse
to the artists when it does not corrupt or
make them lose the peculiar primitive
instinct that each has got from nature."
The most real painters in Paris at that
time were Corot and Courbet, and Pissarro
came, to some extent, under the influence
of both. They appealed to two sides of
his nature—his realism, his intense love of
the thing for its own sake, and his sense of
gracefulness and of the lyrical in landscape.
About 1866 he met Manet, Monet,
Renoir, Sisley and Guillaumin—a group of
ardent students who were all working more
or less under the influence of Courbet.
They studied nature and painted the life
around them. Working in a spirit of
simple sincerity, with the purpose of arriv-
ing at the ultimate truth, they could not
fail to realize the inadequacy of the conven-
tional brown palette to express the bril-
liancy of effects of light and atmosphere.
MANSON. 0aad£)
CAMILLE PISSARRO was the great-
est of the French Impressionist
painters, even if he were not, as some
painters have held, the most artistic. He
was so much more than a painter ; he was
a great man. His art was the expression of
his greatness as a man, which is why, to
those who really know it and who have lived
with it, his work is so satisfying and so in-
exhaustible. It conveys something of the
elusive feeling of the infinity of life itself.
He was a pagan in his worship of nature,
and keenly sympathetic in his love of
humanity and his interest in any form of
human activity. Even in his youthful days
he had what amounted to a passion for
expression, and in his endeavour to realize
the utmost he went further and deeper than
most artists, and, in some directions,
further than any other artist. He may at
times have strained his means in the
attempt to give all that was in him to give ;
but no form of plastic art could adequately
express the depth of his personality. He
gave so much, and yet one is always
conscious in his work that there was still so
much in reserve. He never, as is the habit
of modern painters, cultivated the means
for its own sake, it was useful to him only
so far as it achieved his end. Thus his
technique, especially in his later work, is
original because it is so intimately personal.
His work is never marked by that facile
brilliancy of handling which so takes the
eye and gains the price. He made no com-
promise, and cared nothing for the ready
applause given to mere cleverness and
charm of paint. That is why it has been
said, and wrongly said, that his work is less
artistic than that of some of his confreres,
Monet for example. 0000
He was supremely an artist, for his
technique was always the most fitting
method of expressing his intuition ; it was
inseparable from it, and there was, conse-
quently, versatility in his method, for each
mood, each vision was expressed in its own
way. He was fortunate in having had no
academic training ; from the moment he
first started to draw he went direct to
nature and learnt for himself how to express
what he felt. 0 0 0 0
LXXIX. No. 326.—May 1920
Camille Pissarro was born at St. Thomas,
in the Danish West Indies, in 1830. His
father was a merchant who regarded an
artistic career for his son with disfavour.
After a general education in Paris, Camille,
much against his inclination, was put into
the office at St. Thomas. However, he
followed the advice given him by his school-
master in Paris, and drew cocoanut-trees
and anything else that was handy. As luck
would have it, Fritz Melbye, a Danish
painter, called at St. Thomas in 1852 while
on his way to Venezuela to make studies of
the flora there for the Danish Government.
He met the young Pissarro, encouraged his
aspirations, and finally suggested that he
should accompany him to Venezuela as
assistant. Leaving a note for his family,
Pissarro eloped with his new friend, and
some of the studies of South American
plants now in the National Museum in
Denmark are the work of Pissarro. In
1855 ^e family proceeded to Paris, where
Camille joined them. Artistic matters were
then, as probably they always are, some-
what lively in the French capital, for, in
reply to a letter from Pissarro describing
his experiences, Melbye wrote (in English)
to him from Caracas in 1856 : “ I am very
glad to know that you are in Paris . . . the
romantic, moderate, and realistic or ideal-
istic parties that you mention are fighting
for the septer [sic] and disputing their
rights, must give a most animating impulse
to the artists when it does not corrupt or
make them lose the peculiar primitive
instinct that each has got from nature."
The most real painters in Paris at that
time were Corot and Courbet, and Pissarro
came, to some extent, under the influence
of both. They appealed to two sides of
his nature—his realism, his intense love of
the thing for its own sake, and his sense of
gracefulness and of the lyrical in landscape.
About 1866 he met Manet, Monet,
Renoir, Sisley and Guillaumin—a group of
ardent students who were all working more
or less under the influence of Courbet.
They studied nature and painted the life
around them. Working in a spirit of
simple sincerity, with the purpose of arriv-
ing at the ultimate truth, they could not
fail to realize the inadequacy of the conven-
tional brown palette to express the bril-
liancy of effects of light and atmosphere.