Day 323 - Pissarro still life

 December 5, 2022

I was initially a little surprised to find that Gallery 820 is devoted entirely to the works of Camille Pissarro. I  wondered whether the fact that Pissarro was Jewish led him to be particularly collected by Jewish patrons who then donated their paintings to the Met, and a quick circuit of the room indicates that six of the 17 works on display were given by donors with distinctly Jewish names (and who knows about Bernhard?). That said, I find much to admire about the man himself.  It’s interesting to read  that he was a leftist - hence his portrayals of working people as having strength and dignity - and also a benevolent mentor to younger members of the Impressionist movement.   It's notable, too, that he experimented with different styles throughout his life - from early realism to Impressionism to pointillism and back to Impressionism. But all this would scarcely matter if Pissarro weren't also an excellent painter, and the gallery's contents testify to his skills.

I’d always thought of Pissarro as a painter of the urban (that is, Parisian) scene, and three of the paintings on display portray the Tuileries in various seasons. There’s also a wonderful picture of the Boulevard de Montmartre in winter.  The pale sky, along with the trees denuded of their leaves and the tall gray buildings that  line the boulevard, suggest a chilly day; the shiny pavement hints of recent rain, although none of the figures carries an open umbrella.  A number of  horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians make their way up and down the boulevard and adjacent sidewalks; both horses and humans are like small stick figures,  but you get a sense of the activity that must throng the boulevard in better weather.   Perhaps I’m fond of the picture because it reminds me of an evening that Charly and I spent in Montmartre several years ago and our search for the metro station on the same boulevard. 

I hadn’t realized that Pissarro was also a prolific painter of landscapes, largely made in the countryside around Paris where he owned a home, and a number of these landscapes appear in the gallery.  But the painting that’s the subject of today’s entry is, as I read, a rare example of a genre for which Pissarro, unlike other Impressionists, was not particularly known: the still life. Measuring about 24 inches wide and 17 inches high. "Still Life with Apples and Pitcher" was made in 1872. Upon a table topped by a white cloth sit a blue and white pitcher, a glass of red wine, a shallow dish containing several apples, and a paring knife. I love the simplicity of the forms, the serene palette against which the red-and-yellow apples and the wine stand out, the sheen of the rim of the glass, the shadows cast by the paring knife and the dish, and especially, the patterned wallpaper in the background - a combination of solid tan bands alternating with flowered white ones - that gives liveliness to the scene

Afterwards, I find myself wondering how Pissarro and Degas, a noted antisemite, got along.