Camille Pissarro Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character... So much the better if it is painful for you to take even the first step, the more toilsome the work, the stronger you will emerge from it... I repeat, guard against facility.

Camille Pissarro
I began to understand my sensations, to know what I wanted, at around the age of forty.... but only vaguely. At fifty, that is in 1880, I formulated the idea of unity, without being able to render it. At sixty, I am beginning to see the possibility of rendering it.

Camille Pissarro
I have had a long talk with Renoir. He admitted that the whole crowd – Durand and his former admirers – were shouting at him, deploring his attempt to abandon his 'Romantic' period. He seems very sensitive to what we think of his exhibition. I told him that as far as we were concerned, the search for unity should be the aim of every intelligent artist. – that even in spite of serious faults, it was more intelligent and artistic than wallowing in romanticism.

Camille Pissarro
Painting, art in general, enchants me. It is my life. What else matters? When you put all your soul into a work, all that is noble in you, you cannot fail to find a kindred soul who understands you, and you do not need a host of such spirits. Is not that all an artist should wish for?

Camille Pissarro
At times I come across works of mine which are soundly done and really in my style, and at such moments I find great solace.

Camille Pissarro
I think when one has talent one finally breaks through; so don't pass up any opportunity to do some work.

Camille Pissarro
It does not astonish me that the critics in London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas! I fear that they are only too justified!

Camille Pissarro
But as I see it, the most corrupt art is the sentimental the art of orange blossoms which make pale women swoon.

Camille Pissarro
After seeing his painting at a gallery:
I am much disturbed by my unpolished and rough execution; I should like to develop a smoother technique.... I will calmly tread the path I have taken, and try to do my best. At bottom, I have only a vague sense of its rightness or wrongness.

Camille Pissarro
I can quite understand the effort he is making; it is a very good thing not to want to go on repeating oneself. But he has concentrated all his attention on line; the figures stand out against each other without any sort of relationship, and so the whole thing is meaningless. Renoir is no draughtsman, and without the lovely colours he used to use so instinctively, he is incoherent.

Camille Pissarro
What I have suffered you cannot imagine. But what I'm going through [circa 1878] now is even worse, much more so than when I was young.... because now I feel as if I have no future. Even so, if I had to do it again, I still think I wouldn't hesitate.

Camille Pissarro
Renoir is a great success on the Salon; I think he is 'launched'. All the better! It's a very hard life, being poor.

Camille Pissarro
Lighten your palette [his remark to Cézanne, circa 1873] to encourage him to use bright colors], paint only with the three primary colours and their derivatives.

Camille Pissarro
One can do such lovely things with so little. Subjects that are too beautiful end by appearing theatrical – take Switzerland, for example. Think of all the beautiful little things Corot did at Gisors; two willows, a little water, a bridge, like the picture in the Universal Exhibition. What a masterpiece!... Everything is beautiful, all that matters is to be able to interpret.

Camille Pissarro
Never paint except with the three primary colors [red, blue, and yellow] and their derivatives.

Camille Pissarro
Advice to a young painter:
Don't be afraid of putting on color, refine the work little by little. Don't proceed according to rules and principles, but paint what you observe and feel... One must have only one master – nature; she is the one always be consulted.

Camille Pissarro
[Seurat's pointilist style].... inhibits me and hinders the development of spontaneity of sensation.

Camille Pissarro
Here I have been able to make some good spring studies in oils, and managed to finish my 'Cow-girl' and my 'seared Woman', and my 'London Park', Primrose Hill. I think these pictures have improved a great deal from the point of view of unity. How different from the studies! I am more than ever in favour of taking one's impression from memory; it is less the actual thing - vulgarity disappears, leaving only an aura of truth glimpsed, sensed. To think that this is not understood, so that my anxiety for the future continues as before, despite the success of the exhibition. – I have no news from Paris about my collectors.

Camille Pissarro
The weather today is frightful, rain and wind. You must be having the same at Epping; it's a pity. It had been so fine for the last few days and I had begun to grind away from nature. This is infuriating, for it's the loveliest time of the year, September and October. I can't stand the summer any more, with its heavy, monotonous green, its dry distances where everything can be seen, the torment of the great heat... Artistic sensations revive in September and October, but then it rains and blows!

Camille Pissarro
Work at the same time upon water, sky, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.

Camille Pissarro
Work is a wonderful regulator of mind and body. I forget all sorrow, grief, bitterness, and I even ignore them altogether in the joy of working.

Camille Pissarro