Following Pirke Avot

“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 that not all an artist should wish for?”

This is a quotation from a letter that Pissarro wrote to his son in 1883. Was Pissarro committed to ‘Tikkun Olam:  REPAIRING THE WORLD?”  Perhaps we’ll never know.  But this Jewish tradition (Pirke Avot) requires you to be the best that YOU can be!  And Jacob Camille Pissarro certainly followed that tradition.

Jacob Camille Pissarro was born in 1830 in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands to a Spanish-Portuguese family, originally from Bordeaux, France.  His grandfather (Abraham Gabriel Pissarro) had established an import-export business with offices throughout Europe and the Americas.

Camille’s family were members of the Hebrew Congregation in St. Thomas and he was circumcised there.  He grew up in a household of real comfort.  At the age of 11, he was sent to France to be educated.  He returned to St. Thomas after his graduation.  Camille continued his family’s strong work ethic.  In his early 20, Camille and a friend visited Venezuela.  By the age of 28, Camille was living in Paris, France.

In Paris he met Claude Monet and exhibited in the Salons of 1865, 1866, and 1868.  Emile Zola favorably reviewed him in the Press.  For the next 20 years, Pissarro moved around in France, painting the landscape and the people he met there.  He read the scientific literature about new discoveries in color and he also experimented with new compositional arrangements.

This program is one of a four-part series and will continue with Part 2 in January.