camille pissarro
1830-1903
france


paul cezanne called him "colossal" and said that "we are all derived from pissarro." vincent van gogh declared him "the father of us all."
pissarro was traditionally a great landscapist, translator of nature into art. as his painting flourished, he discovered a new subject central to art . . . the nature of medium itself. he showed that all the basic qualities of painting - colors, brushstrokes, materiality, lines, shapes, composition - possessed their own special meaning and potential to transform paint into purely visual poetry, as well as into illusionistic pictures.