CAMILLE PISSARRO, his quotes on painting landscape in bright colors and his artist life in French Impressionism + biography facts
Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903), his quotes on landscape painting in bright primary colors and on the art movement and colleagues of Impressionism painting art in. Pissarro was a great painter artist in French Impressionism, famous for his many colorful landscape paintings, painted in open air. It was also Pissarro who was close friend of Renoir, Monet and a powerful mentor for the younger painter Cezanne. Pissarro was defending and proclaiming open-air painting of Impressionism with the characteristic broken, primarily colors. It is perhaps Pissarro who was the purest Impressionist till the end of his life.
* At the bottom more biography facts & art links for the famous French painter artist of impressionist landscape, Camille Pissarro – the editor
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Camille Pissarro, his quotes on art and life in Impressionism and landscape painting in open air
– Renoir (one of the famous Impressionist painters, fh) is a great success on the Salon; I think he is ‘launched’. All the better! It’s a very hard life, being poor.
* artist quote from Camille Pissarro, in his letter to Mr. Murer, 27th May 1879, as quoted in “Renoir – his life and work”, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 129
– Lighten your palette (his remark to Cezanne, circa 1873) quote to encourage Cezanne to start using bright colors, fh), paint only with the three primary colours and their derivatives.
* his quote, from ‘Cezanne his Life and Art, Jack Linssey, – Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, London, 1969, p. 154-55
– What I have suffered you cannot imagine. But what I’m going through (circa 1878, fh) now is even worse, much more so than when I was young… .. because now I feel as if I have no future. Even so, if I had to do it again, I still think I wouldn’t hesitate.
* quote from ‘Pissarro, His Life and Work’, Shikes and Harper, p. 142
– I can quite understand the effort he (Renoir, fh) is making; it is a very good thing not to want to go on repeating oneself. But he has concentrated all his attention on line; the figures stand out against each other without any sort of relationship, and so the whole thing is meaningless. Renoir is no draughtsman, and without the lovely colours he used to use so instinctively, he is incoherent.
* artist quote from a letter to Pissarro’s son, 14th May 1887, as quoted in “Renoir – his life and work”, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 188
– I have had a long talk with Renoir. He admitted that the whole crowd – Durand (art buyer of Renoir, fh) and his former admirers – were shouting at him (because of his shift in style, fh), deploring his attempt to abandon his ‘Romantic’ period (probably Pissarro uses this word because Renoir did not use pointillism as Pissarro did, to get objectivity into painting, so it was subjective/romantic to Pissarro, fh). He seems very sensitive to what we think of his exhibition. I told him that as far as we were concerned, the search for unity should be the aim of every intelligent artist. – that even in spite serious faults, it (the art Renoir showed that moment, fh) was more intelligent and artistic than wallowing in romanticism.
* Pissarro’s artist quote, taken from a letter to his son, 14th May 1887, as quoted in “Renoir – his life and work”, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 189
– Here I have been able to make some good spring studies in oils, and managed to finish my (his later famous paintings, fh) ‘Cow-girl’ and my ‘’Seared Woman’’, and my ‘’London Park’’, Primrose Hill. I think these pictures have improved a great deal from the point of view of unity. How different from the studies! I am more than ever in favour of taking one’s impression from memory; it is less the actual thing- vulgarity disappears, leaving only an aura of truth glimpsed, sensed. To think that this is not understood, so that my anxiety for the future continues as before, despite the success of the exhibition. –I have no news from Paris about my collectors.
* quote in his letter to his son Lucien, 26 April 1892, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 144
– One can do such lovely things with so little. Subjects that are too beautiful end by appearing theatrical – take Switzerland, for example. Think of all the beautiful little things Corot (famous French landscape painter, fh) did at Gisors, two willows, a little water, a bridge, like the picture in the Universal Exhibition. What a masterpiece!.. ..Everything is beautiful, all that matters is to be able to interpret.
* Pissarro, quote in a letter to his son Lucien, 26 July 1892, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 146
– What dreadful weather always raining the poor flowers were hardly open when the rain killed them our big red poppies didn’t even have time to appear before they disappeared and the roses, poor roses it’s so sad and what mud, impossible to put your feet out of doors. … …it’s so cold that the asparagus haven’t come out, nor have the peas or the beans I planted. Most of them have rotted I’ll have to plant them all over Again…
* Pissarro’s remark on bad weather, as quoted in ‘’The private lives of the Impressionists’’ Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 179
– I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty…but only vaguely. At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.
* source, the website: history of painters.com – Camille Pissarro
– The weather today is frightful, rain and wind. You must be having the same at Epping; it’s a pity. It had been so fine for the last few days and I had begun to grind away from nature. This is infuriating, for it’s the loveliest time of the year, September and October. I can’t stand the summer any more, with its heavy, monotonous green, its dry distances where everything can be seen, the torment of the great heat.. ..Artistic sensations revive in September and October… …but then it rains and blows!
* Pissarro on the weather condition, quote from a letter to his son Lucien, 15 September 1893, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 148
– Work on the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis… …Don’t be afraid of putting on colour… …Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.
* Pissarro, a quote in 1896, his painting advice for other painters in: Paul Cézanne, Terence Maloon, Angela Gundert (1998) Classic Cézanne, p. 45
– Decidedly, we are at cross-purposes. What’s all this you tell (from England, fh) about the modern movement, commercialism, etc, etc? It bears no relation to our concept of art, at any rate here.. ..That is where the error lies. Trade serves those up to us as readily as anything else; so it is no use. Wouldn’t it be better to steep ourselves in genuine nature again? I do not consider in the least that we are making a mistake, that we should turn to the steam-engine and follow the general public (the English painter Wiliam Morris became very popular those days, fh). No, a thousand times no! We are here to point the way.. ..the remedy is to be found in nature, more than ever. Let us follow what we consider to be the proper aim, we shall see who is right. After all, money is a fragile thing; let us earn some of it, since we must, but let us keep to our role .
* Pissarro on the future of Impressionist painting,, quote in a letter to his son Lucien, 26 April 1900, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 148
– This Mr Dewhurst (who was writing a book ‘Impressionist Painting, it Genesis and Development’ published in 1904, fh) has not understood the Impressionist movement in the very least. All he sees in it is a technical method… …He also says that before going to London (to see the English landscape-painters as Constable and Turner, fh), we (Monet and Pissarro, fh) knew nothing whatsoever about light; but we have studies that prove the contrary. He omits the influence of Claude Lorrain, Corot, all the 18th-century painters, Chardin most of all. But what he fails to realize is that while Turner and Constable were of service to us, they confirmed our suspicion that those painters had not understood ‘The Analysis of Shadows’’, which in the case of Turner are always a deliberate effect, a plain dark patch. As to the division of tones, turner confirmed us its value as a method, but not as a means of accuracy or truth to nature. In any case, the 18th century was our tradition. It seems to me that Turner too, had looked at Claude Lorrain. I am even inclined to think there is a picture by Turner, ‘’Sunset’’, hung side by side with a Claude.
* his late artist quote on the meaning and essence of Impressionism, in a letter to his son Lucien, 8 Mai 1903, as quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 149
Unsourced quotes by Camille Pissarro, the Impressionist painter-artist
– It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.
– I remember that, although I was full of fervour, I didn’t have the slightest inkling, even at forty, of the deeper side to the movement (Impressionism, fh) we were pursuing by instinct. It was in the air!
art links for more information, history facts & biography about Edgar Degas, great artist in French Impressionism
* famous painter Camille Pissarro – biography and painting art, on Wikipedia
* many images of Impressionist landscape painting by Camille Pissarro and biography facts, on Wikiart
