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(PIANO MUSIC)

(BIRDS CHIRRUPING)

(BIRDS CHIRRUPING)

ACTOR AS CAMILLE PISSARRO:
To stop a young man going

where his passions take him

is virtually impossible.

When I think that, when I was young,

I found myself, like everybody,

left to my own devices
in a foreign land...

free, completely free,

and that I was fortunate enough
never to fall foul of fate,

I ask myself:
What advice I could possibly give?

The author of the present
had a powerful distraction -

..art!

(PIANO MUSIC CONTINUES)

(PIANO MUSIC ENDS)

Camille Pissarro is often considered
the "Father of Impressionism".

Not only in art historical terms,
but also by his contemporaries.

He was the most
restlessly experimental

of all the Impressionist artists.

He was one of the first
of the Impressionists

exhibited
at the group exhibition in 1874,

with artists like
Sisley, Monet, Renoir and Degas.

AGNES VALENCAK:
He was an older generation

of the many Impressionists,

and he's famously referred to
as the Father of Impressionism

by these other artists
and younger generations.

And he has the other benefit
that he had this huge beard.

So physically
he appears like a father

which in itself made him
rather patriarchal.

COLIN HARRISON: He was warm. He was
completely devoted to his family.

Although he had minor tiffs
with some other artists,

he was always accommodating,
he was very generous.

He was always short of money,

which is an
endearing trait sometimes.

He was a very sympathetic
conversationalist as well,

but he was also completely upright.

His contemporaries noted
that he was really the byword

for honesty and probity.

He became a mentor
for later generations of artists,

people like Gauguin who, in fact,

he persuaded to start painting
professionally.

People like Paul Cezanne
who, in fact, described him as:

"The father of us all".

JOSEF HELFENSTEIN:
Pissarro is so extraordinary.

He was an innovator.
He was very intellectually curious.

He was almost altruistic.

And that makes him
a very unusual artist in a way,

because he was this mediator,
this kind of bridge

between different personalities.

And then the teacher-disciple model,
he was not interested in that.

He was an anarchist,
meaning that he did not like

any kind of hierarchy or any kind
of system with hierarchy.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL: (SPEAKS FRENCH)

STURGIS:
Pissarro is a fascinating artist

because he's absolutely central
to the Impressionist movement,

and yet he is quite difficult
to describe as an artist.

I mean,
whatever the caricature might be,

if you're asked
to describe Degas or Monet -

your water lilies
or your ballet dancers -

that's not the case with Pissarro.

And I think that's partly
because he was so open to others.

He's an open-hearted artist
and an open-minded artist.

It's an extraordinary thing
that the Ashmolean

holds the Pissarro archive
in the collection.

And so this includes over 800
letters by Camille Pissarro himself,

countless drawings and about
50 paintings by various Pissarros,

not only Camille, but his children
and indeed grandchildren.

Since its foundation, the Ashmolean
has changed beyond recognition

and is now
a very different museum

to the one that was founded
in the 17th century.

It's now a museum of art
and archaeology.

There are, of course,
some specific and famous treasures

such as the Alfred Jewel

or the Messiah Violin,

the best-preserved
Stradivarius anywhere in the world.

Guy Fawkes' lantern. The lantern
Guy Fawkes was actually holding

when he was arrested
under the Houses Of Parliament,

and Uccello's
Renaissance masterpiece

"The Hunt in the Forest".

One can, of course, go on.

And one shouldn't forget
the great 19th-century collections

we hold too -
both the British Pre-Raphaelites,

but, of course, the Impressionist
collection that we hold

which is centred
on the figure of Camille Pissarro

and the Pissarro family archive.

It's impossible to put on
any major loan exhibition

without the collaboration
and partnership

of colleagues across the world,

but partnering with another museum
on a specific exhibition

helps in so many ways.

It's a way of sharing knowledge,
sharing collections

and sharing scholarship
to a far wider audience.

The Kunstmuseum in Basel could not
have been a better partner for us.

They have wonderful complementary
collections of Impressionist works,

so we could share those
with each other.

And also we were developing these
ideas around Camille Pissarro

at precisely the same time,

so that we were natural partners
for this show.

OLGA OSADTSCHY: I think Pissarro
is extremely fascinating,

because once you start
looking at his biography

and at his role in art history,

you see that he's kind of
the original networker.

He was a person who came to France
without knowing anybody,

at a very young age and immediately
started pulling threads together

and looking for like-minded artists
to form unions with

and form alliances with.

I think he was
an extremely passionate man,

a difficult man and a driven man.

So he was somebody who put art
before everything else.

COLIN HARRISON: Camille Pissarro
was born at Charlotte Amalie,

the island of St Thomas
in the Danish West Indies.

His parents were Jewish, had
come from France to be merchants.

I've often asked myself
how important his religion

or his race was to Camille,
being Jewish.

Certainly,
he was proud of his heritage,

but in terms of practising religion,
he never practised.

Pissarro's parents sent him to Paris

when he was 12 years old
to further his education.

He spent six years at the
Pension Savary, where he learnt

the usual rudiments of grammar,
Latin, mathematics and so forth.

But showed a very dangerous
tendency to want to draw.

Six years later,
he went back to St Thomas

to take up work
in his family business.

By chance, he met the Danish artist
Fritz Melbye on the docks.

The two became firm friends
and, in fact,

this was the first relationship
with a proper artist

that Camille had ever had.

The two went on sketching
expeditions and painting expeditions

in the Danish West Indies,

and in 1852
they went to Venezuela,

which was quite near
but extremely exotic.

And, in fact,
the beginnings of Camille's art

can be seen in the drawings
and the paintings

that he made
on this early expedition.

PISSARRO:
I was in St Thomas in 1852,

a well-paid shop clerk.

But I couldn't stand it,

so without giving it a thought
I dropped everything

and ran off to Caracas,

to break the mooring
that tied me to bourgeois life.

What I suffered is incredible,
of course, but I lived.

AGNES VALENCAK: We have this
great photograph of Camille

in gaucho attire in the archive.

It's completely odd.

Pissarro, in his early 20s,

would have been like any
20-year-old now - exploring life.

You know, going to the cafes,
going to the bars in the evening.

But it's an opportunity
to explore life without parents

because previously he was
working with Dad in his company.

You know, doing work every day
and then drawing outside.

And now suddenly nobody tells him
when to get up.

Nobody tells him what to do
and when to do it.

Exploring art very seriously
because by that stage,

he really knows
that's what he wants to become.

But having a party life as well.

(SOARING INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

Pissarro arrived in Paris in time
to visit the Universal Exhibition,

and this was a great event.

Corot was there
and other landscape artists.

He was also very much struck
by a number of other artists

of the same kind of generation as
Corot, perhaps a few years younger.

The artists of the Barbizon School
who worked at Barbizon,

a village in the forest
of Fontainebleau,

painting realist landscapes
very much influenced

by the sight of John Constable.

Amongst the artists
of the Barbizon School,

who particularly
impressed Camille,

were Daubigny, Theodore Rousseau,
and Jean-Francois Millet.

I think Camille admires
the Barbizon artists

because they really were
very unconventional.

JOSEF HELFENSTEIN: Daubigny became
maybe an even more

important friend in his life

because he was on the jury
of the Salon sometimes

and was very much trying
to influence his colleagues

to accept those young people

who were trying a new way
of representing nature.

The Salon is really a kind of an
unbelievable, fascinating system.

It was totally hierarchical,
of course,

so it was the only opportunity for
a young artist to become known,

you know, to show your work
in public in an accepted way.

Thousands of paintings in the end
were shown high up on the wall

or badly lit and so on.

So even the way
how you were presented

and how your paintings were hung
was very important.

You could be in the exhibition,

but nobody would actually see
your painting very well.

But the only way
to get accepted as a painter

was to be accepted in the Salon.

ACTOR AS EMILE ZOLA: Camille
Pissarro has been exhibiting

for nine years now.

For nine years, he has been
showing the critics and the public

strong canvases,
painted with conviction,

though the critics do not
condescend to notice them.

Camille Pissarro is one of the
three or four painters of our time.

He has solidity and breadth
of execution.

He paints generously,

in keeping with the traditions,
like the Masters.

I have seldom encountered
a more profound grasp of painting.

A beautiful picture by this artist
is the act of an honest man.

I could give no better definition
of his talent.

He believed that the countryside

was where the essential work
of the...of the nation carried on.

He was very much an anti-capitalist.
He didn't recognise authority.

He believed that an artist
should be free to do what he wanted,

not to pander to the taste
of the bourgeois.

Not to pander to the dictates
of the dealers.

Camille, I think,
always maintained

that painting
should be experimental.

It should test the boundaries
of aesthetics and taste.

By the end of the 1860s,
he and Monet and others

had developed what
we now recognise as Impressionism.

Pissarro was one of the most
unconventional figures

of the 19th century.

He was also a devoted family man.

Camille met his future wife,
Julie Vellay,

because she was a servant
in his parents' household.

They quickly fell in love.

She came from
a very modest background.

She was a peasant from Burgundy,

and their relationship
was never very straightforward.

His parents didn't approve
of the relationship.

They were quite opposites
in some sense.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL:

ACTRESS AS JULIE PISSARRO:
You see that there's
not much chance on this side.

Another fortnight spent
doing nothing,

and you are no richer,
and no pictures, no work done.

I don't understand why you
spend your time like this.

I don't understand a thing.

Winter's coming, and you've spent
the entire summer in Paris,

and you yourself tell me
everyone you know has left.

What on earth are you doing,
in that case?

You should at least tell me,
so that I don't call you an idler.

(INHALES, SIGHS)

I'm very tired of living like this.

(RUMBLING)

(BOOM OF EXPLOSION)

(SOMBRE MUSIC)

HARRISON: The turmoil
of the Franco-Prussian War

was extraordinarily important
for French artists.

It arose
from the political ambitions

of the Prussian
Chancellor Bismarck,

who wanted to unify Germany and
to assert his authority over France.

Unwisely, Napoleon III thought

that he might boost
his failing popularity

by declaring war on Prussia.

Pissarro, although he'd
wanted to fight for France,

his mother was absolutely
adamant that he shouldn't.

He wasn't even French. He still had,
and indeed had all his life,

a Danish passport.

In 1871 the French had to surrender.

France was utterly humiliated.

But Pissarro and his family
had already fled to England

where he met Monet and he met
the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.

PISSARRO: My dear Monsieur Duret,

here...there is no art.

Everything is
a question of business.

My painting isn't catching on,
it simply isn't.

A fate that pursues me
more or less everywhere.

Regarding sales,
I've not had a single one,

apart from Durand-Ruel who bought
two small pictures from me.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL:

COLIN HARRISON: In 1871,
Pissarro returned to France

to his studio at Louveciennes,

only to discover that 20 years' work
had been destroyed

by the Prussian Army.

He was mortified.

In the following year
he moved to Pontoise

where he remained
for the next ten or 11 years.

Paul Durand-Ruel
also returned to France

and while continuing to sell
the work of the Barbizon artists,

he also began to support the new
generation of the Impressionists.

ACTOR AS DURAND-RUEL: Circumstances
forced me to stop buying from

and helping out my new friends
almost completely.

So to reach the public directly,

Degas, Monet, Renoir,

Sisley, Pissarro,
Mademoiselle Morisot,

Guillaumin, Rouart, Lepic,
and a few others

decided to form
an officially incorporated company,

the Society of Independent Artists.

They held a show of their works
in large premises

belonging to Nadar,
the famous photographer,

at 35, Boulevard des Capucines.

Pissarro was one of
the leading guiding forces

behind the first exhibition in 1874

and he was the only artist
to exhibit

at all eight Impressionist
exhibitions between 1874 and 1886.

That first exhibition
we all remember

because it gave rise to the word
"Impressionist".

This was a virulent criticism
of a painting by Monet,

"Impression Soleil Levant'
so the "Impression of a sunrise".

ACTOR AS CASTAGNARY: The common
concept which united them as a group

and gives them a collective strength
is the determination

not to search
for a smooth execution,

to be satisfied with
a certain general aspect.

Once the impression is captured,
they declare their role terminated.

If one wants to characterise them

with a single word
that explains their efforts,

one would have to create
the new term of Impressionists.

They are "Impressionists"
in the sense that they render

not a landscape, but the sensation
produced by a landscape.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL:

OLGA OSADTSCHY: Camille Pissarro
and Paul Cezanne had a very intimate

and intense friendship,
and it was also a working relation.

At the beginning
they might have started off

on a kind of mentor-mentee
relationship at the very beginning,

but it was very clear that they
were actually working as equals,

even though Pissarro was older
and therefore kind of

more experienced
than Cezanne was at the time.

When Cezanne arrived in Paris
he was a similar outsider

as Pissarro himself was.

And Cezanne was ridiculed

because of his strong
southern French.

He was a rather harsh character,
if we were to believe the sources

and also his letters
are full of swear words

and very direct language.

Pissarro immediately saw
a kindred spirit

and Pissarro and Cezanne,

would really for a decade
work side by side.

JOSEF HELFENSTEIN:
They also had very, very long

and endless discussions
about theory.

They benefited from new technology.

You know, it was the first time

that paint would come in tubes,
in metal tubes.

So you could actually paint,
you know, en plein air

and you could close
these tubes again, and so on,

so you could paint faster.

These two really experimented and
influenced one another in a very -

I think it's a very beautiful kind
of artistic dialogue,

where Pissarro did not want
to be the teacher.

He benefited as much from Cezanne's
new way of observing nature

and painting nature
as Cezanne benefited from Pissarro.

It's perhaps unsurprising,
given that we hold

the Pissarro family archive

that among the most, sort of,
moving and engaging works

within the collection
that we hold here

are those of his family.

And there's none more engaging, none
more speaking to him as a father

than the portrait of his
young daughter, Jeanne Minette.

COLIN HARRISON: Pissarro
painted six portraits of Minette,

the favourite of his children.

The one of 1873 shows her
carrying a Japanese fan.

In the following year, Pissarro made
the most moving of these portraits.

This last portrait of Minette is,
of course, the most moving

because she was dying.

It also shows a much
closer focus on her face.

She's staring at her father,
who is devotedly painting her.

She's clutching a doll.

The unfinished nature of the picture
suggests that she was already ill.

Her hair close-cropped.

This was apparently
to give some relief in the heat.

Minette died at the age of eight and
was ill for some time before that

and this is a portrait
from that period,

and it's a painting
by a father of a daughter

that he knows may not live.

Such a tender thing.
She's looking at him, at us,

and it's impossible not to be moved
by that as a painting.

(SOMBRE PIANO MUSIC)

The collectors of the 1870s, '80s,

weren't particularly interested
in the countryside.

They were more interested in the
scenes that were familiar to them.

So, the holiday spots on the Seine
or the interiors of the opera

or the ballet and so forth.

And this, of course,
was miles away from Pissarro's

dogged concentration
on the rural France.

It's generally agreed by the artists
themselves and by posterity

that in the early-1880s

the Impressionist movement
was in crisis.

ACTOR AS ALBERT WOLFF: Five or six
lunatics, including one woman,

a group of unfortunate creatures
stricken with the folly of ambition,

have met there to show their work.

Try to make
Monsieur Pissarro understand

that trees are not violet,

that the sky is not
the colour of fresh butter,

that in no country
do we see the things he paints

and that no mind
can accept such aberrations!

Seriously, one ought to feel
sorry for these lost souls.

HARRISON: Pissarro
was looking for new motifs.

He first went in 1883 to Rouen,
the first of four visits.

He made a number of works which
he was able to sell to Durand-Ruel.

He painted them not in the way
that Monet would,

in other words,
looking at the cathedral

but actually looking out of
his hotel windows

at the activities in the port.

These were real,
bustling cityscapes.

By this date also,
there was something of a crisis

in the Impressionist movement,

and Camille Pissarro, in particular,
was looking at new ways of painting.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

PISSARRO: Looking towards Rouen
I have before me

all the houses on the quays

lit by the morning sun.

In the background the stone bridge,

to the left the island with its
houses, factories, boats, launches.

To the right
a mass of pinnacles of all colours.

(BIRDSONG)

(WATER GENTLE RIPPLES)

JELLE IMKAMPE: The Pissarros
were moving quite often

and then they ended up
in this house in Eragny in 1884.

Julie really much liked it, Pissarro
as well, but he was kind of a nomad.

He would have never thought
about staying at a place.

He was on the go all the time

and that was important
for him as an artist.

But for Julie
it was quite the opposite.

She had a family to take care of

and for a family it might be
important to stay at the same place.

And then there came this
opportunity that the landlords

wanted to sell the house,
and Julie said, "OK, let's do it."

Pissarro didn't want to do it.

So Julie went to Claude Monet
to ask him for the money,

and he actually gave it to her,

and she bought the house
behind her husband's back,

who was not delighted about it.

But facing the situation,
what should he have done?

He loved the garden,
she loved the garden,

so it was a great place
for the family.

And I think they did
a good thing staying there.

PISSARRO: My dear Lucien,
yesterday I had a violent run-in

with Eugene Manet
on the subject of Seurat and Signac.

The latter was present,
as was Guillaumin.

You may be sure
I rated Manet roundly.

Which will not please Renoir.

Anyhow, this is the point:
I explained to Monsieur Manet,

who probably didn't understand
anything I said,

that Seurat had something
new to contribute

which these gentlemen, despite their
talent, are unable to appreciate.

I am personally convinced

of the progressive character
of his art

and certain that in time
it will yield extraordinary results.

JELLE IMKAMPE: Neo-Impressionism
basically describes

the combination of two techniques -
Pointillism and Divisionism.

Pointillism refers to
the brush stroke.

It means that you divide the gesture
into tiny bits and pieces,

so you basically eliminate
the gesture but have these dots,

which are not always dots,
but also commas and other forms.

But, in theory, it is le point.

Divisionism, on the other hand,

describes that you divide
the colour you want to create

into its different components, which
you apply with these tiny dots,

and that also allows you to weave
in complementary colours.

Pissarro took up the technique
with enormous enthusiasm

and both he and Lucien insisted
that the Neo-Impressionists

should show in a separate room
at the eighth

and last exhibition
of the Impressionists in 1886.

It was extremely time-consuming,
labour intensive,

and it's notable that in
the last four years of the 1880s,

his output plummeted.

Paul Durand-Ruel hates the way

the Neo-Impressionist
painters are painting.

In the second half of the 1880s,

Monet starts to be
successful with Impressionism.

Suddenly, Paul Durand-Ruel is
able to sell off the paintings

to make money.

So he tells Pissarro, "OK, I really
do not like what you're doing,

and I'm not going to be
able to take your paintings

if you continue painting like that."

And that is the moment
when Pissarro decides

to throw everything away
and to start from scratch.

To basically
completely begin from nothing.

So Pissarro has no choice
but to switch to another dealer,

which is Theo van Gogh,
the brother of Vincent van Gogh.

Theo van Gogh supports Pissarro
and the other Neo-Impressionists,

buys his paintings and is trying
to sell them to collectors.

PISSARRO: How is one to combine the
purity and simplicity of the dot

with the full-bodiedness,
suppleness, liberty, spontaneity

and freshness of sensation
postulated by our Impressionist art?

This is the question
which preoccupies me,

for the dot is meagre,
lacking in body,

diaphanous,
more monotonous than simple,

even in the Seurats,
particularly in the Seurats.

In 1891, Seurat died
at a very young age,

and this profoundly affected
the Pissarro family.

It was also the year
in which Theo van Gogh,

who had been dealing in Pissarro in
a minor way in the 1880s, also died.

However,
his rejection of pointillism,

of the divisionist technique

and his return
to straightforward Impressionism

meant that Durand-Ruel was
quite happy to sell his pictures

and gave him
a solo exhibition in 1892,

which was really
his first commercial success.

During the 1890s,

Pissarro was conscious
that his time was running out.

He wrote frequently
to members of his family

that he'd better get on with work

because he didn't have
much time left.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

There is somehow a unity
in the work produced between 1890

and his death in 1903,

which might be considered
a late style.

He rented hotel rooms in cities,
in mostly northern port cities

like Rouen and Dieppe
and Le Havre and in Paris.

So he rented a room and started
to paint from the window.

And that led to his series
of cityscapes,

and it became the beginning of
some kind of a financial success,

the city views.

The cityscapes.

The majority of people in Pissarro's
paintings are, in fact, women,

so we naturally
have to ask ourselves

in what way does he depict women?

If we compare Pissarro's depictions
of women to Degas,

Cassatt or Renoir, for example,

what becomes clear is that Pissarro
is not showing off their femininity,

whatever that means.

For example, he's not showing women
pursuing parental tasks

or in a state of vulnerability.

He is showing women
with their children many times,

but they're just working.

Many people do not know Pissarro
was heavily involved with printing.

It was something that accompanied
him for many, many years

and that he was very interested in.

What he was so interested about
were new technical ways

of presenting Impressionism.

So we understand very well what
Impressionism means on the canvas,

but it's a whole different thing
to translate that technique,

that method to prints
where you have very limited ways

of expressing atmosphere,
for example.

You have you have other tools
to express it differently.

So that was Pissarro's question
about printmaking.

How can
I achieve with my prints

what I have achieved
with my paintings?

And he shared that interest
with Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas.

And then in the 1890s,
Pissarro has a studio in Eragny.

It's the first time
that he has a proper studio

and it's in the old barn.

And that is the moment

when he decides to invest
in a printing press.

And that is also an interest
that he shares with his sons,

who are...who are making woodcuts

and that are very interested
in printmaking as well.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL:

PISSARRO: My dear Lucien,
I arrived in Rouen today from Paris.

I have a splendid view
of the harbour.

I have effects of fog and mist,
of rain, of the setting sun

and of grey weather,

motifs of bridges
seen from every angle,

quays with boats.

But what interests me especially

is a motif of the iron bridge
in the wet,

with much traffic,
carriages, pedestrians,

workers on the quays, boats,
smoke, mist in the distance,

the whole scene fraught
with animation and life.

COLIN HARRISON:
Pissarro was already 70 in 1900,

but his most productive period,
in fact followed in 1901, 1902.

Pissarro moved into an apartment
in the Place Dauphine,

but he was also travelling
between Paris, Eragny, Dieppe

and other resorts,
painting constantly,

all the while producing a most
remarkable late flowering of work.

An extraordinary
explosion of productivity.

He also painted
this final self-portrait,

which in some senses is a reflection

of the great age
that he was feeling.

Of all the self-portraits,

this is the one that shows
Pissarro at his most profound,

looking at himself, but also looking
at his past and his achievement.

PISSARRO: I will do my best
to go quietly on with the life

that has been allotted to me,
by doing as much work as I can,

for the thread that holds me
to this earth has nearly run out.

(BIRDS CHIRRUPING)

Whether he'd caught a cold,

whether there was something
more seriously wrong...

Pissarro's death
happened rather unexpectedly.

His funeral
was held at Pere Lachaise,

and the accounts of it show that
everybody who was anybody in Paris,

in intellectual
and artistic circles, attended.

CLAIRE DURAND-RUEL:

Pissarro's legacy is, frankly,
impossible to quantify.

And he is, to my mind,
the most sincere,

the most uncompromising
of all the Impressionist painters.

ACTOR AS GEORGES LECOMTE:
The man was as great as the artist.

The beauty of his existence
has the same harmonious tenderness

that delights us in his work.

Nowhere more than in the presence
of Camille Pissarro

did one have the impression

that work is one of the
essential functions of life,

and that, far from being an effort,
it is, on the contrary, a pleasure.

Those who did not have
the joy of knowing him,

love him nevertheless
through his magnificent work,

into which he put all
of his great soul.

(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(MUSIC BUILDS)

(MUSIC ENDS)

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