Exhibition on Screen: Pissarro Vater des Impressionismus

"Try to make Monsieur Pissarro understand that trees are not violet; that the sky is not the color of fresh butter, that in no country do we see the things he paints, and that no mind can accept such aberrations!"- Albert Wolff, art critic, after the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876.

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing." - Camille Pissarro

"We learned everything we do from Pissarro. It's he who was the first impressionist." and "He was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord."- Paul Cézanne.

"He was such a teacher that he could have taught the stones to draw correctly." - Mary Cassatt

"I'm so sorry I missed you. I'm delighted with the paintings you left. Could you name a price and bring me others?'" - Paul Durand-Ruel

Not all of these quotes are from the film, which well utilities art historians and a stunning voice actor who reads portions from a vast collection of Pissarro's archived letters. The voiceover actor has a wonderful weathered tone; the inflection he uses to speak weary and wise words brought to my mind Tevya, the father in Fiddler on the Roof.

Sometimes I find art documentaries boring, but not this one. Impressionism is my favorite style of painting. This film got me to consider how strange it was for the public to get used to the new innovative style of painting by the group in Paris, led by Pissarro. It got me to think about how the French Academy's annual Salon, run by the government, dictated what the public would be exposed to. The Salon refused to show the new style of artwork, so The Society of Independent Artists pluckily exhibited their own work. Luckily, Monet and Pissarro eventually met openminded art collector Paul Durand-Ruel in London. He loved their innovations and funded many of the Impressionistic artists. The power of the art investor has never been more clear. Where would we be without Durand-Ruel? Where would we be without these genuine, profound artists that risked expressing themselves in a fresh way?

The son of Jewish merchants, Camille was born in the Danish West Indies. The narrative follows him through his life as he travels and lives in Paris, Venezuela, Norwood in London, and rural France. We learn how he became a radical atheist anarchist who supported worker's rights and married his father's servant, Julie Velley. Julie remained steadfast through a long life with Camille, who struggled financially until his later years because he stayed true to himself and his artistic integrity of painting laborers, peasants, and domestic workers in his landscapes even though it cost him income. The collectors favored the ballet dancers and fancy people on boating expeditions, and so on, but Pissarro preferred to paint nature in its imperfect modesty, and the beauty of working people.

I fell in love with everything about who he was: a restlessly experimenting artisan, anarchistist and uptopianistic. Driven, accommodating, honest, warm, a mentor, intellectually curious, and altruistic. He did not like social or political hierarchy. He was an anti-capatalist and devoted family man, proud of his Jewish heritage, but never practiced religion, and he put art before everything else.

Camille Pissarro painted women in the light of strength and dignity, for example, the gleaner who stands with arms akimbo in the field. These images convey love and respect. He painted these images from deep in his soul. I have been privileged to see his work, which positively and intensely affects me, many times in person. I don't know who I would I be without Pissarro. And who was he, this man whose favorite daughter, Jeanne, (Minette), died at age nine from a respiratory ailment? He painted her when she was healthy and then frail and sick. How heartbreaking that must have been for them both.

Pissarro had to flee to England during the Franco-Prussian War, although he wanted to enlist. While he was gone from France, the Prussian army destroyed most of his life's work, about 1,500 pieces. How crushing, yet he persevered and began anew! He focused on plein air paintings, which he did in a single sitting, working on sky to ground at the same time so as to not lose the first impression. Also, he painted the same scene at varying periods of the day. As noted, he painted women and workers with strength and dignity, used pure colors, impressionist brushstrokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate dipiction of light and its changing qualities, ordinary subject matters, unusual visual angles, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience.

Camille Pissarro was the only artist to take part in all eight Impressionist exhibitions held in Paris between 1874-1886. Not only did he get along with the other artists, he had a flair for discovering new talent, such as Cézanne, and inspiring, teaching, and leading them. In turn, he was open to learning. In the 1880s, when the Impressionist movement was in crisis, he explored Neo-impressionism: Pointillism, the brush stroke that divides the gesture into tiny bits and pieces, and Divisionism in which colours are divided into different componemts, which allows you to weave in complimentary colors. Durand-Ruel did not like Neo-impressionism and could not sell Pissarro's paintings, so Pissarro switched to another dealer, Theo Van Gogh, brother of Vincent.

In addition to painting, Camille Pissarro was an architectural draftsperson, lithographer, printmaker, and graphic artist. When his eyesight was failing in his last years, he rented rooms and painted cityscapes from within a window view. His five sons all became artists under his expert tutelage in which he let them find their way of expression. During the Dreyfus affair in 1901, he sadly lost longterm friendships with Degas and Renoir because they were antisemitic.

I highly recommend this film to art lovers, especially if you like Impressionism. I hope you will be as moved as I am by the life of Camille Pissarro.

This is a documentary covering art, Impressionism, but by a stroke of genius - it is in itself a work of impressionistic art. By gently "touching" all relevant points around Pissarro - Bickerstaff does exactly what the impressionists did so skilfully; gives away just enough for the viewer to get the impression of the great man. It would be a fair assumption that this is no coincidence.

History is always open to interpretation and some may argue that someone other, than Pissarro, is "The Father of Impressionism" but that has little to no baring on the quality of this work.

Sometimes... you get the feeling that you may have dished out that tenth star a bit too flippantly. Bickerstaff's presentation of Pissarro, and indeed Impressionism as a whole, not only hits the documentary sweet spot, he hits it right out of the park. He creates a sense of loss, a loss of that eleventh star to hand out on rare occasions.

For anyone remotely interested in Impressionism - this is a "must see".