About The Artist - Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 - 13 November 1903)
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Camille Pissarro, the father of the Impressionist Movement, was a painter and printmaker.
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About The Painting - Siesta |
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Pissarro's Siesta is a study of a woman lying in the shade of a
haycock. She is wearing a blue full length dress and a pink bonnet that matches the cloth lying near the
picnic basket. This painting depicts with precision Pissarro's love for nature and traditions.
An Impressionist painter, Pissarro's Siesta is fine example of his brushwork, in a depiction of
rural French life. |
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The highlight of Pissarro's work was that he always maintained a
balance between the traditions and the avant-gardes. In fact, Octave Mirbeau even commented: 'M. Camille
Pissarro has shown himself to be a revolutionary by renewing the art of painting in a purely working
sense; at the same time he has remained a purely classical artist in his love for exalted generalizations,
his passion for nature and his respect for worthwhile traditions.' |
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Siesta is warm picture painted in the Impressionism style and
portrays the French rural life and the beauty of nature in ease. The warmly painted haycock and contrasting
green of nature and blue of the sleeping woman's outfit create a wonderful harmony in the composition.
The theme of the painting displays Pissarro's empathy for the laborers, peasants and also evidences
the extent of political leanings. |
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A mentor to Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin, Pissarro was the chief
developer of the Impressionist technique, while Monet was the most emblematic and prolific practitioner
of this style. |
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Remarkably consistent in his style, Pissarro's brushwork
techniques varied form painting to painting and sometimes even in the same painting. In The Siesta,
the artist has used a range of painting techniques; flecks of thick layers of paint create the foliage,
and are intertwined with a collection of long threads of paints that vary in thickness from thin to
thick to create the haystack. |
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Every single work of Pissarro went through various phases of
growth and development in order to reach fruition. |
