Conversation

The late 1870s to the 1880s were a major turning point in the careers of Pissarro and the other Impressionists. This change was symbolized by Monet, Renoir and Sisley's absence from the 6th Impressionists Exhibition held in 1881, and from this time onwards the Impressionists each struck out on their own path. Pissarro also made some new attempts to find a way out of this impasse amidst these circumstances in the late 1870s. These experiments included his work with prints, his experiments with a new genre, and his research into new techniques in concert with such younger artists as Gauguin, Seurat and Signac. We can find evidence of these changes in this Conversation. Here we can spot the technical precursor to Pissarro's experiments with Seurat's pointillist techniques in the later 1880s. In terms of subject matter, Pissarro here changes his focus to figures, a shift from his earlier emphasis on the landscape. This work was exhibited in the 7th Impressionist Exhibition of 1882. Of the 36 works that Pissarro displayed in that exhibition, 27 of them, as here, portray the figural forms of the farmers around Pontoise. Pissarro's works avoid Millet's dramatically idealized images of farmers, concentrating rather on an unexaggerated depiction of farmers in their everyday surroundings. It is for this reason that Pissarro's farmers exhibit a greater validity and familiarity than that found in Millet. In addition, the unifying touch that creates all, whether figure, road, or tree, conveys a sense of the close bond between Pissarro's peasants and nature. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.80)