The Danish-French artist was highly influential during the 19th century and has a vast collection of works. He experimented with many different art styles throughout his career.
From the beginning of the 1860s, Pissarro’s work was selected to be shown in the Paris Salon. Although he was against everything the Salon stood for, he needed to participate in order to gain recognition.
Pissarro never benefited financially from his artwork during his lifetime. He and his family often had barely enough money to survive as he only rarely managed to sell his paintings.
Although Pissarro was typically a lot older than his artist peers, he retained a childlike inquisitiveness and was always open to experimenting with new techniques taught to him by other artists.
Camille Pissarro paintings are often easily distinguishable by pastoral themes. Pissarro enjoyed painting rural settings and the people that live in them.
For Pissarro, depicting light and shadows as he saw them at the moment was very important. Thus, many of his paintings are highly detailed and realistic.
One can see from Pissarro’s paintings, particularly those containing architecture, that although his brushstrokes were chaotic the foundations of his paintings were always well thought out.
After practicing Impressionism for many years, Pissarro felt as though he was in an artistic rut. Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionism for four years before returning to Impressionism.
Camille Pissarro’s artwork did not make him a wealthy man during his lifetime and did not always receive praise from critics. However, he developed a reputation as a dynamic artist and displayed his paintings in many exhibitions during his career. These included:Salon des Refusés (1863)Impressionist Exhibitions (1874 – 1886)