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The Man Who Could Teach Stones to Draw
Cézanne called himself his pupil. Gauguin counted him among his masters. Camille Pissarro, a founder of Impressionism and mentor to a generation of painters, knew how to develop people. Here is what we can learn from him.
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) is often called the father of Impressionism. He was the only painter to show work at all eight of the group's exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886, and the circle of artists who learned from him reads like a table of contents of modern art: Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Signac, Cassatt, and his own sons.¹ His paintings hang in the great museums. His longer-lasting work may be the careers he shaped. It starts on a hillside.
Pontoise, a small town on the Oise, northwest of Paris, around 1877. Two easels stand on the same slope, the Côte des Bœufs. Two men paint the same houses, the same trees, the same winter light.
The older one is in his mid-forties, bearded, patient, known among his friends as the calmest head in a quarrelsome group of painters. The younger one is in his late thirties, moody, and a favorite target of the Paris critics, who find his pictures crude and clumsy.
Put the two canvases side by
