An Old Man Looking from the Window: Camille Pissarro, the Tuileries Garden Paintings, and Turning Points in His Career

This chapter’s point of departure is a series of paintings from 1898 to 1899 by Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) showing the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, seen from his home at 204 Rue de Rivoli. Pissarro had started his career as a realist and impressionist. Around 1885, he ‘converted’ to neo-impressionism, but by 1890 he returned to his earlier style. The Tuileries paintings are typical of Pissarro’s late impressionist style. In letters to his son Lucien, Pissarro described the renunciation of neo-impressionism as breaking free from the strait-jacket of neo-impressionist theory. His letters also contain extensive critical descriptions of the works of his former neo-impressionist comrades. His harshest attacks concern works by Paul Signac with explicitly anarchist meanings, though Pissarro himself continued to hold the same anarchist convictions. Several non-artistic considerations may have played a role in the creation of the Tuileries series: an eye disease forcing Pissarro to give up open-air painting and switch to views from the window; the insistence of his dealer Durand-Ruel that he paint these very saleable cityscapes; the politically charged nature of the park site; and the financial need to support his artist children. Working quickly in series guaranteed his income, but likely left little time for reflection.