Letters To His Son Lucien

The eldest child of Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Lucien went to England to seek his fortune as an artist. His father wrote almost daily to him. The correspondence, which began in 1883 and stopped only with Camille Pissarro's death 20 years later, provides readers with a source of information and inspiration. To the historian these letters give first-hand material, to the artist they reveal the methods and theories of a master, and to the average reader they disclose the intimate life and everyday struggle of a great but simple man, with a gift not only for the brush, but also for the pen. Pissarro's comments on life, politics and literature are as pungent and fascinating as those on artists such as Gauguin, Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, Degas and Cezanne. But it is when he communicates to Lucien his own views on art that these letters take on their highest importance as a illuminating document of Impressionism.