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拍品專文
Although Pissarro is often remembered as the preeminent Impressionist painter of rural life, it was the modern city instead that captured his artistic attention during the final ten years of his career. Between 1893 and 1903, he executed over three hundred views of four different cities (Paris, Rouen, Dieppe, and Le Havre), more than any other major impressionist. While Monet, Renoir, and Caillebotte each painted cityscapes as well, none approached the genre with the same determination as Pissarro. Richard Brettell calls Pissarro's late work "the most sustained contribution to urban view painting by any great artist since the death of Canaletto in 1768," and asserts, "Not until Robert Delaunay became obsessed with Paris as a visual emblem of modernity in 1910 was Pissarro's role as the primary painter of the modern dimensions of French cities challenged" (The Impressionist and the City: Pissarro's Series Paintings, exh. cat., Dallas Museum of Art, 1992, pp. xv and xviii). Likewise, Christopher Lloyd writes about Pissarro's urban scenes:
The paintings of Paris, Dieppe and Le Havre are remarkable for their overall strength of composition and command of detail. Pissarro deploys diagonals, horizontals and verticals with such precision that the complicated tangle of movement and life presented by an urban or industrial scene is deftly pinned to the canvas. Pissarro's supreme ability as an artist was to bring order to confusion. He had already demonstrated this ability in front of nature early on in his career, but it was only at this late stage of his life that he attempted it in the context of crowded urban and industrial subjects. These canvases are dominated by movement: the sky, the light, the water, people, smoke, carriages, trams, cranes, masts, flags, funnels--all help to animate the surface, just as the variety of brushwork and color matches the restlessness of Pissarro's eye (Camille Pissarro, New York, 1981, p. 133).
The present canvas is part of a series of nine paintings that Pissarro made at Dieppe during the summer of 1901, depicting the church of Saint-Jacques and the surrounding urban fabric. The artist had left his home in Eragny in June 1901 in search of an agreeable spot on the Channel coast to spend the summer. After visiting Trouville, Lisieux, Villers-sur-Mer, and Caen, he finally decided on Dieppe, which had the advantage of being conveniently situated to both Paris and Berneval, where his wife Julie and their children had taken summer quarters. Pissarro arrived at Dieppe on July 20th and remained there until September 26th, lodging at the Hôtel du Commerce on the Place Duquesne. The nine canvases that he painted during this period were all made from his hotel window, which provided a view of the north elevation of the Eglise Saint-Jacques. In four of the paintings, Pissarro shows the church either on market day or on the occasion of Dieppe's annual town fair, with the stately Gothic edifice surrounded by tents, stalls, and a bustling crowd (fig. 1). In the other five examples, including the present one, he focuses instead on the majestic architecture of the church, with its flying buttresses, ogival arches, and florid stonework. The Place Duquesne is occupied by a scattering of figures, and the Rue Saint-Jacques, lined with picturesque houses, leads away from the church into the distance. Discussing Pissarro's work at Dieppe, Brettell and Joachim Pissarro comment:
In this small series of nine paintings, Pissarro examined several sets of contrasts, and these, paradoxically, bind the works together. One of the main oppositions explored is that established between the church building and the people around it. The church is seen in its human context, a context that occasionally overwhelms it, as in the market scenes. The bustling crowd, assembled on market days, is temporary; on other days the church is seen almost in isolation, with only a few, interspersed figures present. The spiritual, the eternal, the grayness of the stone are offset by movement, noise, garish colors, market sheds; or, on the contrary, the church appears daunting, counterbalanced by only a few lost figures (ibid., p. 171).
Pissarro was evidently pleased by his campaign at Dieppe and exhibited six of his nine views of the town, including the present one, at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in February 1902. He returned to Dieppe from July to September of the same year, explaining to his son Lucien, "Dieppe is a wonderful place for a painter who likes life, movement, colors. I have friends there and I know the motifs I would like to do. I've made up my mind to go back there this year, in spite of the crowds" (quoted in J. Pissarro and C. D.-R. Snollaerts, op. cit., p. 878). During this second sojourn, he concentrated on views of the harbor rather than the church, producing a total of twenty-one paintings. He considered making a third visit in Dieppe in 1903, the year of his death, but was deterred by the poor quality of the food there and chose to work in Le Havre instead.
A key source of inspiration for Pissarro's views of the church at Dieppe was Monet's Rouen Cathedral series of 1892-1894 (fig. 2). When Monet's paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in May 1895, Pissarro described them to his son Lucien with unqualified admiration: "I hope you receive this letter in time to make a trip with the little one. If only you could get here before Monet's show closes; his Cathedrals will be scattered everywhere, and these particularly ought to be seen in a group. I am carried away by their extraordinary deftness. Cézanne, who I met yesterday at Durand-Ruel's, is in complete agreement with my view" (quoted in J. Rewald, Camille Pissarro, Letters to Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 269). Between 1896 and 1898, Pissarro made three trips to Rouen, where he too painted several views of the cathedral (fig. 3). In contrast to Monet's paintings, however, which exclude any human presence to focus on the cathedral's timeless and ethereal façade, Pissarro's canvases depict the Gothic edifice as firmly integrated within the urban fabric of Rouen. Likewise, his paintings from Dieppe show the Eglise Saint-Jacques as a focus of social activity and contemporary life in the modern city. As Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts have written, "The oils Pissarro painted during his first trip to Dieppe, all of them centered on the church of Saint-Jacques, are without question a tribute to a fellow artist [Monet], and a splendid one at that--yet their manner is distinctly Pissarro's" (op. cit., p. 849).
Pissarro's paintings of the church at Dieppe also reflect his long-standing interest in Gothic art. In a letter to Lucien dated 1883, the artist wrote, "I have done some little drawings of wooden sculpture, pure Gothic in style with tiny ornaments--it's wonderful" (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., Dallas, 1992, p. 171). Six years later, he advised his son Georges, "I think that it would be useful for you to compare nature with the work of the Gothics, who in short, as artists, drew all their elements from nature with an incomparable boldness" (quoted in ibid., p. 171). As late as 1902, the year after the present series was painted, Pissarro continued to be captivated by France's Gothic monuments. Infuriated by an editorial in the journal, L'Aurore, which suggested that the Gothic churches should be allowed to fall into ruin, Pissarro wrote from his hotel room at Dieppe to the editor of the anarchist newspaper Les Temps nouveaux, "Should one destroy the masterpieces of the Gothics? I do not think so!" (quoted in ibid., p. 181).
The present canvas depicts a row of small, spindly trees bordering the church of Saint-Jacques. These were planted at the behest of the town council of Dieppe during the summer of 1901, as a means of protecting the landmark edifice from cart traffic in the busy Place Duquesne. Pissarro witnessed the planting of the trees and included them in four of his nine views of the church.
(fig. 1) Camille Pissarro, La Foire autour de l'église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe, matin, soleil, 1901. State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. BARCODE 23657632
(fig. 2) Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1892-1894. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. BARCODE 23657649
(fig. 3) Camille Pissarro, La Rue de l'Epicerie, Rouen, 1898. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. BARCODE 23657656
The paintings of Paris, Dieppe and Le Havre are remarkable for their overall strength of composition and command of detail. Pissarro deploys diagonals, horizontals and verticals with such precision that the complicated tangle of movement and life presented by an urban or industrial scene is deftly pinned to the canvas. Pissarro's supreme ability as an artist was to bring order to confusion. He had already demonstrated this ability in front of nature early on in his career, but it was only at this late stage of his life that he attempted it in the context of crowded urban and industrial subjects. These canvases are dominated by movement: the sky, the light, the water, people, smoke, carriages, trams, cranes, masts, flags, funnels--all help to animate the surface, just as the variety of brushwork and color matches the restlessness of Pissarro's eye (Camille Pissarro, New York, 1981, p. 133).
The present canvas is part of a series of nine paintings that Pissarro made at Dieppe during the summer of 1901, depicting the church of Saint-Jacques and the surrounding urban fabric. The artist had left his home in Eragny in June 1901 in search of an agreeable spot on the Channel coast to spend the summer. After visiting Trouville, Lisieux, Villers-sur-Mer, and Caen, he finally decided on Dieppe, which had the advantage of being conveniently situated to both Paris and Berneval, where his wife Julie and their children had taken summer quarters. Pissarro arrived at Dieppe on July 20th and remained there until September 26th, lodging at the Hôtel du Commerce on the Place Duquesne. The nine canvases that he painted during this period were all made from his hotel window, which provided a view of the north elevation of the Eglise Saint-Jacques. In four of the paintings, Pissarro shows the church either on market day or on the occasion of Dieppe's annual town fair, with the stately Gothic edifice surrounded by tents, stalls, and a bustling crowd (fig. 1). In the other five examples, including the present one, he focuses instead on the majestic architecture of the church, with its flying buttresses, ogival arches, and florid stonework. The Place Duquesne is occupied by a scattering of figures, and the Rue Saint-Jacques, lined with picturesque houses, leads away from the church into the distance. Discussing Pissarro's work at Dieppe, Brettell and Joachim Pissarro comment:
In this small series of nine paintings, Pissarro examined several sets of contrasts, and these, paradoxically, bind the works together. One of the main oppositions explored is that established between the church building and the people around it. The church is seen in its human context, a context that occasionally overwhelms it, as in the market scenes. The bustling crowd, assembled on market days, is temporary; on other days the church is seen almost in isolation, with only a few, interspersed figures present. The spiritual, the eternal, the grayness of the stone are offset by movement, noise, garish colors, market sheds; or, on the contrary, the church appears daunting, counterbalanced by only a few lost figures (ibid., p. 171).
Pissarro was evidently pleased by his campaign at Dieppe and exhibited six of his nine views of the town, including the present one, at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in February 1902. He returned to Dieppe from July to September of the same year, explaining to his son Lucien, "Dieppe is a wonderful place for a painter who likes life, movement, colors. I have friends there and I know the motifs I would like to do. I've made up my mind to go back there this year, in spite of the crowds" (quoted in J. Pissarro and C. D.-R. Snollaerts, op. cit., p. 878). During this second sojourn, he concentrated on views of the harbor rather than the church, producing a total of twenty-one paintings. He considered making a third visit in Dieppe in 1903, the year of his death, but was deterred by the poor quality of the food there and chose to work in Le Havre instead.
A key source of inspiration for Pissarro's views of the church at Dieppe was Monet's Rouen Cathedral series of 1892-1894 (fig. 2). When Monet's paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in May 1895, Pissarro described them to his son Lucien with unqualified admiration: "I hope you receive this letter in time to make a trip with the little one. If only you could get here before Monet's show closes; his Cathedrals will be scattered everywhere, and these particularly ought to be seen in a group. I am carried away by their extraordinary deftness. Cézanne, who I met yesterday at Durand-Ruel's, is in complete agreement with my view" (quoted in J. Rewald, Camille Pissarro, Letters to Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 269). Between 1896 and 1898, Pissarro made three trips to Rouen, where he too painted several views of the cathedral (fig. 3). In contrast to Monet's paintings, however, which exclude any human presence to focus on the cathedral's timeless and ethereal façade, Pissarro's canvases depict the Gothic edifice as firmly integrated within the urban fabric of Rouen. Likewise, his paintings from Dieppe show the Eglise Saint-Jacques as a focus of social activity and contemporary life in the modern city. As Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts have written, "The oils Pissarro painted during his first trip to Dieppe, all of them centered on the church of Saint-Jacques, are without question a tribute to a fellow artist [Monet], and a splendid one at that--yet their manner is distinctly Pissarro's" (op. cit., p. 849).
Pissarro's paintings of the church at Dieppe also reflect his long-standing interest in Gothic art. In a letter to Lucien dated 1883, the artist wrote, "I have done some little drawings of wooden sculpture, pure Gothic in style with tiny ornaments--it's wonderful" (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., Dallas, 1992, p. 171). Six years later, he advised his son Georges, "I think that it would be useful for you to compare nature with the work of the Gothics, who in short, as artists, drew all their elements from nature with an incomparable boldness" (quoted in ibid., p. 171). As late as 1902, the year after the present series was painted, Pissarro continued to be captivated by France's Gothic monuments. Infuriated by an editorial in the journal, L'Aurore, which suggested that the Gothic churches should be allowed to fall into ruin, Pissarro wrote from his hotel room at Dieppe to the editor of the anarchist newspaper Les Temps nouveaux, "Should one destroy the masterpieces of the Gothics? I do not think so!" (quoted in ibid., p. 181).
The present canvas depicts a row of small, spindly trees bordering the church of Saint-Jacques. These were planted at the behest of the town council of Dieppe during the summer of 1901, as a means of protecting the landmark edifice from cart traffic in the busy Place Duquesne. Pissarro witnessed the planting of the trees and included them in four of his nine views of the church.
(fig. 1) Camille Pissarro, La Foire autour de l'église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe, matin, soleil, 1901. State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. BARCODE 23657632
(fig. 2) Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1892-1894. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. BARCODE 23657649
(fig. 3) Camille Pissarro, La Rue de l'Epicerie, Rouen, 1898. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. BARCODE 23657656