NORMANDIE IMPRESSIONNISTE FESTIVAL IS BIG HIT!

Published May 10, 2013 Art 2 Comments

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REPORT FROM FRANCE …

So far, I’ve seen three of the four headliner exhibitions. And I think it is safe to say that the Festival is a great success. And the museums were all full, and it is just the first week!

PISSARRO AND THE PORTS is predictably my favorite.  It is quite interesting to see how much variety  Pissarro was able to find from hotel windows in Rouen, Dieppe, and Le Havre. Of course, he captured all the different weather changes, but he also varied his view by turning to the left, the right, and looking straight ahead.  He seemed to be fascinated by the ever-changing scenes before him.  While other Impressionists chose to focus on one specific motif, such as water lilies, Pissarro was constantly challenging himself with different motifs.

SIGNAC, the exhibition at Giverny, is a superb collection of the Neo-Impressionist’s work.  It ranges from very early works to his initial Neo-Impressionist paintings to his mature works in that style.  He was, of course, a friend of Pissarro’s.  In fact, he was first a friend of  Pissarro’s oldest son Lucien, who actually introduced him to Signac. Signac in turn introduced both of them to Seurat and the Neo-Impressionist movement took flight. Pissarro became frustrated with the dots because the time required to create a painting in that manner caused a lack of spontenaeity.

UN ETE AU BORD DE L’EAU in Caen is a very interesting exhibition, featuring a number of less-familiar artists.  There were several very nice paintings by Lepine and predictably a few Monet’s and Renoir’s.  My favorites were a couple of very fine paintings by Berthe Morisot and an exquisite painting by John Singer Sargent.  Perhaps you can see some of them on the website.

Soon I will go to Rouen, which is sure to have an excellent exhibition.  It’s one of my favorite French museums.

And, of course, I will go to the two museums at Pontoise, one of which is the Musée Pissarro.  There are always good things to see at both of them, and the book PISSARRO’S PLACES is on sale there.

More from France and then Madrid, as I continue to follow Pissarro.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PISSARRO AND THE PORTS–Musée Malraux, Le Havre, France–Opening April 28

Published April 19, 2013 Art Leave a Comment

le havre

The Anse des Pilotes, Le Havre, Morning, Sunshine, Tide Rising
1903
Musée Malraux, Le Havre, France
PDR 1509

This is one of the paintings purchased from Pissarro by the museum in Le Havre museum. The complex scene documents the heavy traffic in Le Havre’s port. The harbor is packed with boats, and commercial facilities line the water’s edge. The left side of the canvas reveals a red brick factory with a tall smokestack, and billowy clouds fill the top half of the canvas.

Pissarro focused on a steamship in the left foreground, which is barely visible behind the huge steam crane discharging puffs of white smoke. A heavy consignment hovers in midair above the dock. The dark boom of the crane draws a heavy diagonal line, which, if extended, meets the top of the ship’s tallest mast. This joined at the bottom with the ship’s deck forms a large triangle that is repeated in the triangular shape of nearby sails. The boom also makes a distinct X with the ship’s lower mast and forms a perfect parallel with a small boom on the ship. This highly geometric construction anchors the painting and provides a stable fulcrum around which the other elements can revolve.

Interestingly, the lower mast of the docked ship is flying the French flag. This may have been a local ship, carrying merchandise from the Le Havre docks inland to Rouen or Paris. Just to the right, another small ship in the middle of the harbor is also flying the tricolour. To the left of the first flag, on the distant side of the harbor is a flurry of flags of red, white, and blue. The inclusion of French flags is unusual for Pissarro. We wonder why the anarchist painter included French flags in this particular painting, but it is almost always a mistake to second-guess him. He may have simply painted what he saw that day.

This is an excerpt from the book PISSARRO’S PLACES, now available at http://www.pissarrosplaces.com

PISSARRO’S PLACES was chosen to be an official publication of the Normandie Impressionniste Festival 2013.

See it on their French website: http://www.normandie-impressionniste.fr/node/2529

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NEW WEBSITE — PISSARRO’S PLACES

Published April 10, 2013 Art , Books Leave a Comment
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promo cover

The new website for PISSARRO’S PLACES is now live on the web!  Check it out and let us know what you think.

http://www.pissarrosplaces.com

There is a link on the website for your comments and we look forward to hearing from you.

Will you be in Paris on May 22?  If so, please accept this invitation to hear Ann Saul talk about

 PISSARRO’S PLACES

in a slide-lecture presentation at 7:30 at

The American Library in Paris

10 Rue du Général Camou  75007 Paris

PISSARRO’S PLACES

is honored to be one of the official publications of the

NORMANDIE IMPRESSIONNISTE FESTIVAL OF 2013

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PISSARRO’S PLACES — Announcing the book launch!

Published April 9, 2013 Art Leave a Comment
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6. PONTOISE d.pdf - Adobe Acrobat Professional

PISSARRO’S PLACES tells his story in a fresh and different way—exploring the places he painted and his “sensations” as he translated them into brushstrokes on his canvas. In his landscapes, you almost feel the sun and the wind in the trees. In his city paintings, you sense the hustle and bustle of traffic. This was his genius.

Rather than settling for the familiar, Pissarro courageously put himself into new situations in pursuit of different and exciting motifs. With PISSARRO’S PLACES, you see those places through his eyes. All the paintings featured in the book are located in public museums and are accessible to the public.

“I thought I knew every nook and cranny of Pissarro’s varied relations throughout the world, but you’ve just taught us there are many places we had missed, so many details we had not seen.”  Joachim Pissarro, great-grandson of Camille Pissarro and preeminent art historian

Visit the website to learn more about PISSARRO’S PLACES!   http://www.pissarrosplaces.com  (After 4/10/13)

 The regular list price is $39.99.

For the book launch until June 1, the price will be $29.99.

 

You can also order the book by emailing pissarrosplaces@gmail.com

or by writing Ann Saul, 225 S. 18th Street, Unit 510, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PISSARRO’S PLACES ARE IN NORMANDY THIS SUMMER!!

Published March 22, 2013 Art 1 Comment
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                   OF COURSE, you say.  Everyone knows that Pissarro painted in Rouen, Le Havre, and Dieppe, all of them in the heart of Normandy!!  But this is 2013 and there’s more! 

PISSARRO’S PLACES has just been chosen to be part of the

Normandie Impressionniste Festival 2013!

Last week the Scientific Committee of the Festival reviewed material from the book PISSARRO’S PLACES and gave it a place among a few other publications officially endorsed by the Festival!  They will soon place the book on their website on their Publications page. PISSARRO’S PLACES is, in fact, the only English-language book to be included.

The first Normandie Impressionniste Festival was held in 2010, and it took France by storm, drawing locals and tourists alike to a summer full of artistic events, including a superb art exhibition at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen.

The 2013 Festival promises to surpass the last one, with four superb art exhibitions in museums at Rouen, Caen, Giverny, and Le Havre. PISSARRO’S PLACES fits  in with all the exhibitions, especially with the one at Musée Malraux in Le Havre, Pissarro and the Ports. In fact, a whole chapter of the book PISSARRO’S PLACES is devoted to the city of Le Havre and Pissarro’s experiences painting their harbors.

The Normandie Impressionniste Festival has an extraordinary website in French, English and a host of other languages that describes all the events that run from late April through September.  Check it out:  http://www.normandie-impressionniste.eu/

PISSARRO’S PLACES will be published in April.

Watch for news of a website and a book launch promotion.

PISSARRO IN NEW YORK AT THE FRICK

Published March 12, 2013 Art 1 Comment
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frick-2 Boulevard de Rochechouart, 1880

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Pissarro seems to be everywhere this year–in Madrid at Museo Thyssen Bornemiszo, in Le Havre as part of the Normandie Impressionist Festival, and in this one work which is part of an exhibition at the Frick. PISSARRO’S PLACES are everywhere!
This work is not featured in the book, PISSARRO’S PLACES.  Take this marvelous opportunity to see it in person. Photos are never as good!
The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark, March 12, 2013 to June 16, 2013
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A CLOSER LOOK
This beautiful pastel, Boulevard de Rochechouart, by Camille Pissarro deserves to be better known. This street is in the 9th arrondisement, an extension of the Boulevard de Clichy. He knew that area  well because his pied-a-terre in Paris was located in the 18th just a few blocks north. He was living there with Julie and his  family that winter.
What is interesting is that this work on paper was done relatively early in Pissarro’s career, in 1880. This is 13 years before Pissarro started his series of paintings in Paris.  Yet in this one, he seems to be looking down on the street as he did in 1893 at Place du Havre. It would seem to be a foreshadowing of his work to come.
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Here is an interesting perspective as noted in Art Daily of March 12 (See URL below for the whole story):

PISSARRO CHALLENGES NOTIONS OF FINISH Like Millet, Camille Pissarro spent much of his career depicting peasants and unembellished scenes of rural life, although the urban cityscape seized his imagination as well. His large pastel Boulevard de Rochechouart depicts a slice of Paris in the years following Baron Haussman’s renewal of the city. For the writers and artists of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the pulse and rhythm of the grands boulevards symbolized modernity, as eloquently expressed in Baudelaire’s famous essay of 1863 “Peintre de la Vie Moderne.” Through hatched, unblended strokes in a multitude of colors, Pissarro achieves a sense of transparency that captures the shifting sensations of a city in constant flux. His high viewpoint plunges the viewer into the melee of a tree-lined place, with carriages and omnibuses circulating and pedestrians dispersing into the streets. These anonymous urban dwellers dressed in dark clothing are mere blurs in the lively milieu, a world away from Millet’s monumental figure who commands the space of his environment. Although the pastel appears closer to a sketch than a completed work, Pissarro deliberately challenged accepted notions of finish. He signed and dated the sheet and exhibited it as an independent work alongside his paintings and smaller drawings in the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition of 1881.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=61243#.UT9-kVegv0c[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

PISSARRO IN SPAIN — THIS SUMMER–IT’S PISSARRO!

Published February 14, 2013 Art 1 Comment
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The Orchard at Éragny, 1896, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on deposit at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, PDR 1134

AN EXTRAORDINARY EXHIBITION IS OPENING IN JUNE IN MADRID!!  Perhaps the gorgeous painting shown above will be among those in the exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Here’s the full story from their superb English website (http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/home)

Pissarro

From 04 June to 15 September 2013

In the summer of 2013 the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza will be presenting the first monographic exhibition in Spain on the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). A key figure within Impressionism (he wrote the movement’s foundational letter and was the only one of its artists to take part in all eight Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886), Pissarro was nonetheless eclipsed by the enormous popularity of his friends and colleagues, in particular Claude Monet. The exhibition includes more than 70 works with the aim of restoring Pissarro’s reputation and presenting him as one of the great pioneers of modern art. Landscape, the genre that prevailed in his output, will be the principal focus of this exhibition, which offers a chronologically structured tour of the places where the artist lived and painted: Louveciennes, Pontoise and Éragny, as well as cities such as Paris, London, Rouen, Dieppe and Le Havre. While Pissarro is traditionally associated with the rural world, to which he devoted more than three decades of his career, at the end of his life he shifted his attention to the city and his late output is dominated by urban views. Curated by Guillermo Solana, this exhibition will subsequently be shown at the CaixaForum, Barcelona.

THE TIMING IS EXCELLENT TO SEE PISSARRO AND THE PORTS IN LE HAVRE, FRANCE AND PISSARRO IN MADRID, SPAIN THIS SUMMER.

 

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