Rewald John. Pissarro

Harry N. Abrams, 1989. — 134 p.Camille Pissarro was the dean of the impressionist painters, not only because of his age—he was two years older than Manet, who at first put himself at the head of the movement—but also by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality.
" So begins John Rewald's intimate and evocative biography of Pissarro, triend of Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and others, mentor to Cezanne and Gauguin, ally of Signac and of Seurat, whose divisionist style he briefly adopted.
The years of Pissarro's life, 1830 to 1903, encompassed the great flowering in French art of the revolutionary style of the Impressionists, when not only the way of painting changed, but also the subject matter. In natural light-filled canvases the artists freshly saw the world around them, the rural landscapes, the city views, the cafe scenes. Pissarro 's particular feeling for the countryside of France and those who peopled it comes through strongly in these marvelous works. Though he had success only late in his lifetime and was often hard-pressed to support his wife and six children
(some of whom the author has known), Pissarro stands as a giant of the period and comes alive in this book not only as a painter of great distinction but as a generous and devoted parent and colleague.
Here are forty of the master's glowing landscapes and figure paintings in color, along with an additional two dozen landscapes in superb black and white, as well as drawings by Pissarro and others and photographs of the artist, his family and friends, and the places
thev all lived and worked in together.
Author John Rewald is perhaps better equipped to write this book than any other art historian; his monumental History of Impressionism is the definitive survey of the period. Here he delves deeply and with delight into the work of one of the period's great masters.