Editing Camille Pissarro (section)

===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}}