Editing Camille Pissarro (section)

==Life in France==
[[File:Camille Pissarro Jalais Hill, Pontoise The Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''Jalais Hill, Pontoise'', 1867. [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]
In 1855, Pissarro moved back to Paris where he began working as an assistant to [[Anton Melbye]], Fritz Melbye's brother and also a painter.<ref name="Gallery2">''Camille Pissarro'', Art Gallery of New South Wales, (2005)</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Exhibition |url=http://www.pissarro.vi/exhibition.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100325045151/http://www.pissarro.vi/exhibition.htm |archive-date=25 March 2010 |access-date=5 October 2010 |publisher=St. Thomas Synagogue}}</ref> He also studied paintings by other artists whose style impressed him: [[Courbet]], [[Charles-François Daubigny]], [[Jean-François Millet]], and [[Corot]]. He also enrolled in various classes taught by masters, at schools such as [[École des Beaux-Arts]] and [[Académie Suisse]]. But Pissarro eventually found their teaching methods "stifling," states art historian [[John Rewald]]. This prompted him to search for alternative instruction, which he requested and received from Corot.<ref name="Rewald" />{{rp|11}}

===Paris Salon and Corot's influence===

His initial paintings were in accord with the standards at the time to be displayed at the Paris [[Salon (Paris)|Salon]], the official body whose academic traditions dictated the kind of art that was acceptable. The Salon's annual exhibition was essentially the only marketplace for young artists to gain exposure. As a result, Pissarro worked in the traditional and prescribed manner to satisfy the tastes of its official committee.<ref name=Masters/>

In 1859 his first painting was accepted and exhibited. His other paintings during that period were influenced by [[Camille Corot]], who tutored him.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Pissarro |title=Pissarro Exhibition PowerPoint with sound |access-date=29 October 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091231033741/http://artknowledgenews.com/Pissarro |archive-date=31 December 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He and Corot shared a love of rural scenes painted from nature. It was by Corot that Pissarro was inspired to paint outdoors, also called "[[plein air]]" painting. Pissarro found Corot, along with the work of [[Gustave Courbet]], to be "statements of pictorial truth," writes Rewald. He discussed their work often. [[Jean-François Millet]] was another whose work he admired, especially his "sentimental renditions of rural life".<ref name=Rewald/>{{rp|12}}

===Use of natural outdoor settings===
[[File:Camille Pissarro 012.jpg|thumb|left|''Entrée du village de [[:fr:Voisins (Louveciennes)|Voisins]]'', 1872. [[Musée d'Orsay]], Paris.]]

During this period Pissarro began to understand and appreciate the importance of expressing on canvas the beauties of nature without adulteration.<ref name=Rewald/>{{rp|12}} After a year in Paris, he therefore began to leave the city and paint scenes in the countryside to capture the daily reality of village life. He found the French countryside to be "picturesque," and worthy of being painted. It was still mostly agricultural and sometimes called the "golden age of the peasantry".<ref name="Gallery2"/>{{rp|17}} Pissarro later explained the technique of painting outdoors to a student:

:"Work at the same time upon sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression."<ref>{{cite book |last=Rewald |first=John |title=The History of Impressionism |publisher=Harry Abrams |year=1990 |page=458 |isbn=978-0810960367 }}</ref>

Corot would complete his paintings back in his studio, often revising them according to his preconceptions. Pissarro, however, preferred to finish his paintings outdoors, often at one sitting, which gave his work a more realistic feel. As a result, his art was sometimes criticised as being "vulgar," because he painted what he saw: "rutted and edged hodgepodge of bushes, mounds of earth, and trees in various stages of development." According to one source, such details were equivalent to today's art showing garbage cans or beer bottles on the side of a street. This difference in style created disagreements between Pissarro and Corot.<ref name=Masters/>

===With Monet, Cézanne, and Guillaumin===
[[File:Road to Versailles at Louveciennes 1869 Camille Pissarro.jpg|left|thumb|In 1869 Pissarro settled in [[Louveciennes]] and would often paint the road to Versailles in various seasons.<ref>{{cite web |publisher= [[Walters Art Museum]]
 |url= http://art.thewalters.org/detail/20599
 |title= Road to Versailles}}</ref> [[Walters Art Museum]].]]
In 1859, while attending the free school, the [[Académie Suisse]], Pissarro became friends with a number of younger artists who likewise chose to paint in the more realistic style. Among them were [[Claude Monet]], [[Armand Guillaumin]] and [[Paul Cézanne]]. What they shared in common was their dissatisfaction with the dictates of the Salon. Cézanne's work had been mocked at the time by the others in the school, and, writes Rewald, in his later years Cézanne "never forgot the sympathy and understanding with which Pissarro encouraged him."<ref name=Rewald/>{{rp|16}}  As a part of the group, Pissarro was comforted from knowing he was not alone, and that others similarly struggled with their art.

Pissarro agreed with the group about the importance of portraying individuals in natural settings, and expressed his dislike of any artifice or grandeur in his works, despite what the Salon demanded for its exhibits. In 1863 almost all of the group's paintings were rejected by the Salon, and French Emperor [[Napoleon III]] instead decided to place their paintings in a separate exhibit hall, the [[Salon des Refusés]]. However, only works of Pissarro and Cézanne were included, and the separate exhibit brought a hostile response from both the officials of the Salon and the public.<ref name=Masters/>

In subsequent Salon exhibits of 1865 and 1866, Pissarro acknowledged his influences from Melbye and Corot, whom he listed as his masters in the catalogue. But in the exhibition of 1868 he no longer credited other artists as an influence, in effect declaring his independence as a painter. This was noted at the time by art critic and author [[Émile Zola]], who offered his opinion:

:"Camille Pissarro is one of the three or four true painters of this day&nbsp;... I have rarely encountered a technique that is so sure."<ref name=Masters/>
[[File:Camille Pissarro et sa femme Julie Vellay en 1877 à Pontoise.jpg|thumb|right|Camille Pissarro and his wife, Julie Vellay, 1877, [[Pontoise]]]]
Another writer tries to describe elements of Pissarro's style:
:"The brightness of his palette envelops objects in atmosphere&nbsp;... He paints the smell of the earth."<ref name="Gallery2"/>{{rp|35}}
And though, on orders from the hanging Committee and the [[Charles-Philippe de Chennevières-Pointel|Marquis de Chennevières]], Pissarro's paintings of [[Pontoise]] for example had been skyed, hung near the ceiling, this did not prevent [[Jules-Antoine Castagnary]] from noting that the qualities of his paintings had been observed by art lovers.<ref>King, Ross. ''The Judgement of Paris'', Chatto & Windus (2006). p. 230.</ref> At the age of thirty-eight, Pissarro had begun to win himself a reputation as a landscapist to rival Corot and Daubigny.

In the late 1860s or early 1870s, Pissarro became fascinated with [[Japanese prints]], which influenced his desire to experiment in new compositions. He described the art to his son [[Lucien Pissarro|Lucien]]:

:"It is marvelous. This is what I see in the art of this astonishing people&nbsp;... nothing that leaps to the eye, a calm, a grandeur, an extraordinary unity, a rather subdued radiance&nbsp;..."<ref name="Gallery2"/>{{rp|19}}

===Marriage and children===
In 1871 in [[Croydon]], England, he married his mother's maid, Julie Vellay, a vineyard grower's daughter, with whom he had seven children, six of whom would become painters: [[Lucien Pissarro]]  (1863–1944), [[Georges Henri Manzana Pissarro]] (1871–1961), [[Félix Pissarro]] (1874–1897), {{ill|Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro|fr}} (1878–1952), {{ill|Jeanne Bonin-Pissarro|fr}} (1881–1948), and [[Paul-Émile Pissarro]] (1884–1972). They lived outside Paris in [[Pontoise]] and later in [[Louveciennes]], both of which places inspired many of his paintings including scenes of village life, along with rivers, woods, and people at work. He also kept in touch with the other artists of his earlier group, especially Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, and [[Frédéric Bazille]].<ref name=Masters/>

=== Political thought ===
Pissarro was involved in anarchist circles and held strong views of egalitarianism.<ref name=":1" /> Pissarro was a subscriber to the radical anarchist publication [[Le Révolté]] and was in consistent communication with leading anarchist theorizer [[Jean Grave]] as well as fellow anarchist artists such as [[Paul Signac]] and [[Henri-Edmond Cross]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Herbert |first=Robert L. |last2=Herbert |first2=Eugenia W. |date=1960 |title=Artists and Anarchism: Unpublished Letters of Pissarro, Signac and Others – II |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/873160 |journal=The Burlington Magazine |volume=102 |issue=693 |pages=517–522 |issn=0007-6287}}</ref> His political philosophies also motivated some of his art.<ref name=":2" /> For instance, in 1889, Pissarro created an album of 30 drawings titled Turpitudes Sociales, using a style of caricature and allegory to critique modern societal issues.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Berg |first=Hubert van den |date=1991 |title=Pissarro and Anarchism |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289126 |journal=History Workshop |issue=32 |pages=226–228 |issn=0309-2984}}</ref> The purpose of the album was political, Pissarro created the album as a gift for his niece aiming to solidify her anarchist tendencies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Thomson |first=Richard |date=2016 |title=Camille Pissarro's 'Turpitudes sociales' revisited, part I: politics, caricature and family tensions in 1889 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43858729 |journal=The Burlington Magazine |volume=158 |issue=1357 |pages=276–282 |issn=0007-6287}}</ref>