George Weisz
Sydney, Australia

Reviewing the lives of famous people is mostly rewarding and only disappointing when it changes our views of admired idols. Apart from his painting, the so-called “dean” of the Impressionist art movement is of interest for several other reasons. What more can we say about Camille Pissarro than the books, stories, lectures, and exhibitions issued since his name surfaced more than a century ago?

This is the story of his remarkable ancestry and equally remarkable descendant dynasty, as well as an analysis of a lesser-known ophthalmological condition and its influence on his paintings and on the Impressionist art movement.

The Pissarro family ancestry

The Pizzarro family arrived in seventeenth-century Portugal after being expelled from Spain as “crypto Christians”—also known as “Marranos”—namely, secretly practicing Judaism at home, while officially being considered Cristãos-novos (New Christians). Expelled from Spain in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Cristãos-novos found refuge in the neighboring country while paying a large yearly fee to the new Portuguese king. When their finances were exhausted just five years later, they were also expelled from Portugal. Jewish families escaped to the Ottoman Empire, to a few German principalities such as Warburg, to Amsterdam, or, later in the seventeenth century, to a settlement in Bordeaux by decree of French King Louis XI. This was the route that the Pissarro family also followed.

It was Pierre Rodriguez Alvares Pizzaro (1662–1718) from Braganza, Portugal, who ended up in southern France as Nouveaux Chretien, who is considered the head of the Pissarro family line. His son, Jacob Gabriel Pissarro (1734–1785), also moved to southern France, where Jacob’s son Gabriel Joseph Pissarro (Camille’s grandfather) was born in 1777. However, it was Frederic Abraham Pissarro (1802–1865) who joined the local Jewish community by marrying Rachel Pomie. For business interests, he moved to St. Thomas Island in the Danish Caribbean colony, where his son Abraham Jacob Camille Pissarro (now known as Camille Pissarro) was born in 1830.

Camille’s interest in painting started early in life, when he spent two years traveling in Venezuela and studying art representation. Following his relationship with Julie Vellay (1838–1926), who was from a simple wine-growing family and a maid to Camille’s mother, he became the father of three children and the family moved to France for further studies. Camille remained an atheist and anarchist, and he became a French nationalist and anti-monarchist during his years in Europe. He stayed mainly in the countryside, not far from the capital city, and gradually joined the Impressionist movement. He was the eldest, most appreciated and admired by colleagues, and was the only artist among the group of painters exhibiting in all eight yearly exhibitions of the Salon in Paris (1884–1893).

During the Franco-Prussian War, he found refuge in London, where he married his long-standing partner Julie Vellay, having by then a total of six living children. He returned after two periods in England to the French countryside, and finally to Paris when his ability to paint in “plein-air” or sudden “impressions” deserted him because of eye diseases.

It was also in France that Camille became a revolutionary, liberal, Marxist, and universalist. Only later on, during the Dreyfus trial in 1893, Camille was reminded of his origins and was shunned by half of the other Impressionists. After living in France for many years, his best friends within the art society, Renoir and Degas, also denied him.

The Camille Pissarro dynasty

The Pissarros had eight children. The third one, Felix (1874–1897), succumbed as a young man to tuberculosis. Another sibling died soon after birth. The rest were all artists in the style of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, and lived long lives for that time or even for today.

The first-born within the second generation was Lucien (1863–1944), who was his father’s close confidant and a successful painter, followed by Georges Henri Manzana (1871–1961), Jeane Bonin (1881–1948), Ludovic Lodo (1881–1952), and Paul Emile (1884–1972). All the siblings were artists, painters, and designers, exhibiting art and transferring the artistic inclination to the next generations.

The third generation started with Lucien’s daughter Orovida (1893–1968), a painter and printmaker, who lived and exhibited both in England and in France. To this third generation also belongs Claude Bonin (1921–2021), son of Jean, a painter of both Impressionism and pointillism, who lived his life mostly in Paris. Hugues Claude (1935–2001), the son of Paul Emile, was a painter and art professor who lived in France and Monaco.

The fourth generation are the descendants of Claude Bonin, namely Frederic Bonin, a painter born in 1964, as well as the children of Hugues Claude. Joachim, born in 1959, is an art history teacher and curator at US, Australian, and London universities. Julia, born in 1966, is a painter and designer in the UK. Finally, Lelia, born in 1963, is a post-Impressionist painter, etcher, and printmaker who resides mostly in the UK.

Lelia’s daughter Lyora, born in 1991, is a painter of country landscapes and abstracts who lives in England and the US.

Peculiarities: Artistic talent and longevity

Tendency or inclination, talent, or similarities within the same family are encountered in various artistic environments such as music (Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Strauss), painting (Tintoretto, Ghirlandaio, Lippi, Vivarini), sculpture (Ferrucci), and in medicine or politics. It is, however, the example of the Pissarro dynasty, which produced five generations of artists, that is of particular interest.

An extensive search within the earlier ancestry of the Pissarro family revealed no other member connected to art. Therefore, it seems that the artistic inclination and talent so extensive in the dynasty to follow, originated with Camille Pissarro.

Also of great interest is the longevity in the dynasty. Extensive research in the ancestry of the Pissarro family showed interesting, although not universal, longevity. The head of the family in the seventeenth century, Alvarez Pizzarro, lived to 56; in the next generation, Jacob was 51; Gabriel was 81; Frederic was 63, and Camille lived to 73.

However, particular longevity started with Julie Vellay, who lived to 88. Among her children, Lucien was 81, Georges was 91, Jeanne was 67, Ludovic was 68, and Paul Emil was 88. Sadly, one child also died shortly after birth and another succumbed to tuberculosis at 23.

Amongst the grandchildren, Orovida lived to 71, while Claude Bonin lived to 100. As this tendency is not definitely found in the Pissarro ancestry, it is more likely that the tendency towards longevity originates from Camille’s wife, Julie Vellay.

Painting with eye disease, a particularity of the Impressionists

It seems that infectious, degenerative, or congenital vision problems were common among the distinguished list of artists that called themselves “Impressionists.” However, the beauty even in their later work would cast doubt on the idea that vision problems affected their art. The history of the ophthalmology of the Impressionists was presented in detail in an excellent volume by Marmor and Ravin.

Claude Monet (1844–1926), likely the originator of the movement, described and painted in plein-air the momentary “impression” of a sunrise or other daily events, a phenomenon of nature, or people who impressed the artist. Monet consulted many ophthalmologists for vision problems. However, treatments were illogical and empirical. For example, he was given aphakic glasses for magnification, even though he likely had non-functioning lenses from cataracts. Although his vision gradually declined, his paintings remained of great beauty.

Marie Cassat (1844–1926) was diagnosed with bilateral cataracts, which affected her vision. She changed mediums from oil paint to alternative powder pastel trying to accommodate her vision problems. This was partially successful, and the end products remained beautiful.

Edgar Degas (1834–1917), another eminent member of the Impressionist movement, was diagnosed with cataracts at the age of 36. He found working outdoors in bright light to be difficult and had to move inside for his paintings.

Camille Pissarro’s story of visual problems spanned several decades at the end of his life, requiring many consultations with various clinicians and even more with homeopathic practitioners. The treatment of his nasolacrimal duct obstruction, apart from causing local discomfort and at times severe pain, also led to prolonged tearing of the right eye. Pissarro eventually had a nasal duct dilatation, which was complicated by sinus drainage and fistulae, likely caused by an infection from the nasal tract. He was affected by outside dust, which forced him to observe nature and the city from inside.

It also seems that his right eye had a chronic dacryocystitis, an obstructed lacrimal canal at its outlet into the nasal space. This obstruction led to constant tearing, local infection, and pain. It was likely either the effect of insufficient nasal hygiene, the effect of constant pipe smoking, or perhaps an effect of the chemical content of the paints or solvents that all Impressionist painters used. The other eye was diagnosed with a cataract, but he refused the repeatedly suggested surgery.

The question of abandoning outside, bright-light painting due to opacification of the lens tormented all painters. For Pissarro, the years of intensified eye problems corresponded to a shift to the “Neo-impressionist” style of painting in the 1880s – from free painting in strokes outside to painting indoors and looking outside through windows. Interestingly, this period of change corresponded with Pissarro’s change in painting style, from straight lines to color dots, a new technique known as “pointillism.”

Somewhat disappointed, Pissarro abandoned the new technique and resumed, in the last decade of life, painting in accord with techniques that the movement of Impressionism had introduced some half a century earlier. Indoor paintings and city views of the capital’s streets at various times of the day became his master images during the last decade of his life.

It is indeed ironic that just one year after Camille’s death, a medical publication by the Italian Adeo Toti presented a surgical solution for his pathology, dacryocystorhinostomy, which was based on an ancient procedure presented by Hammurabi in 1769 BC.

Final words

The history of a great painter is further augmented by his personal family history. Reading their biographies, it becomes clear that despite extensive outside connections, Camille Pissarro was a successful head of the family. He was supported in activities by his wife, who was a dependable partner in looking after the family. As a father, he was close to all his children, often surrounded by them and frequently accompanied by a child when traveling. He was also the head of an artistic dynasty and nurtured the following generation with great success.

References

1. Rachum S. Camille Pissarro’s Jewish Identity. Isr. Museum, 1994.
2. Ravin JG. Eye Disease Among the Impressionists. J. Ophth. Nursing.1994:13(5):217-22.
3. Marmor MF, Ravin JG. The artist’s eye. Abrams, 2005.
4. Ward M. Pissarro, Neo impressionism. University of Chicago Press ,1996.
5. Pissarro C. Catalogue, Exhibition at Art Gallery of Sydney, 2006.
6. Catalogue, Pissarro Exhibition. Hayward Gallery London, 1981.
7. Muhlstein A. Camille Pissarro. The audacity of impressionism. Other Press NY, 2023.
8. Stone I. Depth of Glory: a biographical novel of Camille Pissarro. Signet NY, 1985.
9. Shikes RE, Harper P. Pissarro, his life and work. Quartet Books NY, 1980.
10. Ali MJ. Lacrymal surgery. Saudi J. Ophthalmology. 2014 Jan-Mar; 28(1): 1-2.
11. Toti A. Nuovo metodo conservatore di cura radicale delle soppurazioni croniche del sacco lacrimale (dacriocistorinostomia). Clinica Moderna, 1904;10: 385-7.

Acknowledgements

Emeritus Professor William Randall Albury, New South Wales University, for his guidance; Erez Silberman, University of Sydney student, for assistance in graphic imaging; Barbara Swebeck, Researcher at Woollahra Library, Sydney, for her assistance.