Two women at the seaside deep in conversation, St. Thomas

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Two women at the seaside deep in conversation, St. Thomas (Camille Pissarro)
Two women at the seaside deep in conversation, St. Thomas
Camille Pissarro , 1856
Oil on canvas
27.7 x 41 cm
National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC

Two women at the seaside deep in conversation, St. Thomas (also Two women, conversing on the beach, St. Thomas. , Original title: Deux femmes causant au bord de la mer ) is an oil painting from the early work of the French painter Camille Pissarro from the Year 1856. It shows two women on a beach path in front of a Caribbean coastal landscape, relaxing with each other in the sunshine.

The painting is 41 cm wide and 27.7 and 27.9 high respectively and was added to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1985 as part of the Mellon couple's collection .

description

Detail - the two female figures

The picture shows two Afro-Caribbean women standing opposite each other on a beach path in the sun and talking to each other.

The woman facing the viewer holds a large basket, presumably with fresh laundry, on her head with her left hand, which provides her shade. She wears a white dress gathered in the waist area and a large colored scarf as a head covering that also hangs over her shoulder. The woman opposite her, turned away from the viewer, barefoot, wears a dress in a strong blue and a brownish-red headgear. Her left arm is holding a basket. Both figures cast a shadow to the front left.

The scene is embedded in a calm, otherwise almost deserted beach landscape. Only far in the background, by the water, is a small group indicated, perhaps fishermen, perhaps other women washing clothes. The beach path runs from the lower center of the picture to the left and back and merges into a chain of hills in the background, the edge of which divides the picture diagonally from right to left and which drops steeply into the sea at the back right.

Signature: C.Pizarro. Paris 1856.

The sea in the background is calm and smooth and reflects the sunlight. Apart from a bush on the left in the picture, there is only little, sparse vegetation, the landscape is also rather sparse and indicated with smooth surfaces. The clear focus is on the two women, who exude calm and harmony.

Bottom left is the picture with C.Pizarro. Paris 1856. signed, a spelling of his name that Pissarro used until 1859.

Origin and classification

Camille Pissarro grew up on the Caribbean island of Saint Thomas ; He gained his first experience as a painter in the years 1852 to 1854 when he was living in Venezuela with his painter friend Fritz Melbye . On his return to Saint Thomas, he had finally decided on a career as an artist and moved to Paris in October 1855. The Two Women were created there at the beginning of this early creative period, presumably in Anton Melbye's studio on Montmartre at 49 Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette, which he shared for a while. The picture is part of a group of nine signed works with "tropical" motifs from 1856:

  • Forêt tropicale

  • Personnages discutant au bord d'un chemin

  • Paysage with masures and palmiers

  • Crique avec voilier

  • Cocotiers au bord de la mer, St. Thomas

  • Crique with palmiers

  • Deux personnages causant sur le bord d'une route

  • Personnages se reposant in un village près d'un puits

What is remarkable - Joachim Pissarro even calls it “paradox” - is that Pissarro was still painting motifs from his homeland, Saint Thomas, in Paris, where he was already turning to French landscapes at the same time. These were probably created from sketches or from memory. His son Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro assumes that there was an interest in these motifs, above all from Anton Melbye, who owned some of the pictures, and that they could also be sold through Pissarro's friend P. Lecreux.

About the motif itself, Wolf Eiermann from the Stuttgart State Gallery wrote on the occasion of the first Pissarro retrospective in Germany in 1999 that the reflections on the water surface were not easy to paint in this series, but that he had enough inspiration from the seascapes of the Melbye brothers. However, the main characteristic of his later works is clearly recognizable as the artist created his figures, namely with calm, joy of life and inner harmony. Working women are also a central motif in much later works by the artist.

Eiermann also sees “Latin American flair” in the motif, with which the chatting women allowed themselves to be placed in the tradition of Antilles painters like Agostino Brunias .

Storm clouds in the Campagna by Oswald Achenbach : figures in the foreground, diagonal and horizontal structure, sparse landscape.

In 1981, the British art historian Christopher Lloyd emphasized the influence of the Melbye brothers on the artistic development of the young Pissarro. Through him Pissarro got to know currents of the European painting schools; Lloyd thus draws parallels between the compositions of the two women with the painting Thunderclouds in the Campagna (or Campagna landscape with an upcoming thunderstorm ) by Oswald Achenbach . When he arrived in Paris, the twenty-five year old Pissarro was in full possession of his artistic abilities.

Provenance

According to a catalog entry in Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre from 1939, the painting was at that time in the collection of the Danish painter and paint manufacturer Gunnar A. Sadolin (1874–1955). In December 1965 it was auctioned at Sotheby’s in London and was sold in the same year to the collection of the American art patron Paul Mellon , who donated it to the National Gallery of Art in 1985.

Exhibitions

literature

  • Ludovic Pissarro, Lionello Venturi : Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre. 2 volumes. Paul Rosenberg, Paris, 1939. Volume 1, p. 78, no. 5, as Deux Femmes Causant au Bord de la Mer, Saint-Thomas; Volume 2, Fig. 1
  • Christopher Lloyd : Camille Pissarro Edition d'Art Albert Skira, Geneva 1981, ISBN 978-0-33331-908-6 , p. 18, ill. P. 19
  • Joachim Pissarro: Camille Pissarro, Hirmer, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6090-7 , p. 39, fig. 35 / p. 42
  • Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005, ISBN 978-8-87624-526-8
  • Christoph Becker: Camille Pissarro , on the exhibition "Camille Pissarro", in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart from December 11, 1999 to May 1, 2000. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 1999, ISBN 3-7757-0855-3 , p. 5, fig P. 4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gerhard Finckh (Ed.): Camille Pissarro. The father of impressionism (exhibition catalog). From the Heydt Museum Wuppertal, 2014, ISBN 978-3-89202-091-2 , p. 188
  2. ↑ a b c d Christoph Becker: Camille Pissarro , Ostfildern-Ruit 1999. ISBN 3-7757-0855-3 , p. 4/5
  3. ^ A b c National Gallery of Art - The Collection - Two Women Chatting by the Sea, St. Thomas
  4. ^ Joachim Pissarro , Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 53
  5. ^ Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 47
  6. ↑ a b Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 49
  7. ↑ Joachim Pissarro: Camille Pissarro, Hirmer, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7774-6090-7 , p. 39
  8. ↑ Christopher Lloyd : Camille Pissarro Geneva 1981, p. 18
  9. ↑ National Gallery of Art, database entry of the collection (English, tab "Provenance")
  10. ^ The entry on the provenance in Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , p. 53, which contradicts the information of the National Gallery and according to which the painting a. a. is said to have been auctioned at Sotheby's in 1994, is apparently a misprint.
  11. ^ Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 403
  12. ^ Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 405
  13. ^ Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 417
  14. ^ Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts: Pissarro. Catalog critique des peintures / Critical Catalog of Paintings , Skira, Wildenstein Institute Publications, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-8876245268 , p. 422