#PaintingOfTheWeekNo8

 Plum Tree in Blossom by Camille Pissarro, 1894

This week’s painting is a gorgeous work by the French impressionist Camille Pissarro.  I’m not entirely sure why he gets less attention than many of the other impressionists like Manet and Degas – neither of whom really liked the term or felt it applied to them.  Yet if anyone deserves to be called the ‘father of impressionism’ it is Pissarro: only he showed in all eight impressionist shows.  It was he that Cézanne claimed taught them everything.  

This particular painting is at the Ordrupgaard museum near Copenhagen. Indeed Pissarro was part-Danish (having been born in the Danish Antilles to Portuguese and French parents).  Ordrupgaard is one of the thousands of wonderful galleries throughout the world that sometimes get overshadowed by the mega-museums but really should always be on any traveller’s itinerary if one is in the area.

Pissarro came to France as a foreigner and maybe always saw the landscape through the eyes of a detached but somewhat awestruck outsider and observer.  In Paris he studied the works of great painters like Millet and Corot – and landscapes were always to be his metier.  Unlike Monet who was forever travelling in search of new landscapes and cityscapes, Pissarro was comfortable to capture the location around him; the life around his own house and family.   It should be said, mind you, that money – or lack of – played a part in his decision.  I recently read Pissarro’s book ‘Letters to his son Lucien’ and one of the common themes in the near-destitution he lived in.  Once again, it is our friend Paul Durand-Ruel who pops up to offer an economic crutch to lean on.  In 1884 Pissarro and his family moved to Éragny, north-west of Paris. This painting is from the garden of his new house.  The garden is wonderfully bathed in a glittering spring light.  Pissarro is clearly entranced by the light as it skips across the flowering fruit trees.  Everything is both still and active at the same time.  Of a moment and yet timeless.

A final word about the gallery the painting now resides in.  ''I might just as well confess now rather than later that I have been rash and made substantial purchases,'' Wilhelm Hansen (1868-1936) wrote to his wife, Henny, in 1916. ''I know, though, that I will be forgiven when you see what I have bought; it is all first class.''  Hansen, a wealthy Danish insurance tycoon, had just bought two landscapes by Sisley, a Monet cathedral and a portrait by Renoir and a Pissarro.  His interest may have been triggered by a 1914 show of 19th-century painting in Copenhagen that was stranded there by the outbreak of the First World War. Prices for art then dropped during the war, when Americans were absent from the European market, and Hansen made his first purchases thus in 1916. These paintings were to become part of the most important collection of 19th-century French paintings in northern Europe.  We have just finished a film entitled DEGAS – PASSION FOR PERFECTION and Hansen’s collection and Degas intertwined.  Hansen and his associates made many purchases after 1916 but one important one was to acquire the collection of a Parisian dentist, George Viau, which included more than 200 paintings notably part of (the deceased) Degas's collection and studio. They also secured three Degas works from Ambroise Vollard, among them the late pastel ''Three Dancers'' (c. 1898). Thus it is that paintings end up all around the world. Hansen’s fine collection, along with a fine group of paintings by Danish artists of Hansen's day and earlier, was given a fine home at Hansen’s large country home in the town of Ordrupgaard outside Copenhagen. After his wife's death in 1951, the house and the paintings became the state-owned Ordrupgaard Museum. 

What's coming next? Find out here!

Sunday morning and catching up.  I’m too busy to even go for a run today but with Christmas around the corner there’s a lot to get done.  Last Friday we finished YOUNG PICASSO which I think is one of the best films we’ve done.  I think we had the idea almost four years ago so it has been a long time in the making.  

I personally have learnt a huge amount about this titan of art history.   I know plenty of people actually know relatively little about Picasso’s origins – and the importance certain cities played in his development.  Too often films just list achievements without explanation: I like to know why a small child from Málaga rises to become arguably the greatest artist of the 20^th century.  The 26-year-old that paints Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: where does he come from, who does he learn from, was he just plain lucky? And so on.  I hadn’t realised what a full and fascinating youth Picasso had has – and I was extremely fortunate to be able to work with the experts of the (wonderful) Picasso museums in Spain and France. 

Once again, I urge you to luxuriate in the artwork on the big screen.  My word, he is quite extraordinary from such a young age.  The film is out in February: don’t miss it.  The blue period paintings in ultra HD on the big screen are worth the price of admission alone.   Meanwhile, our film DEGAS: PASSION FOR PERFECTION is doing OK on its release.  I admit I wish we were getting the kind of numbers that theatre and opera get in the cinema but we’ll just keep plodding away. Certainly we get a lot of great reaction to the films themselves so that’s very motivating.  I don’t think Degas was very well known by even those who declare themselves lovers of the impressionist period (which frankly should be all of us!).  We’ve just had some great reviews out of France echoing that: see the Degas film in your local cinema and (re)-discover an artist you probably didn’t really know or appreciate.   France is such a tough market – cinephiles for sure but awash with films and with a preference for French-speaking (and why not?) or Hollywood.  Again, we’ll carve out our niche and keep beavering away.  

My colleague David is currently editing VAN GOGH & JAPAN and that’s going to be a cracker too.  This is a fascinating time in the world of cinema as so many are built in new territories: I was recently invited to speak at a cinema conference in Dubai and I have to say I was staggered by the money being spent on absolutely high-end cinemas (albeit often in shopping malls) across the middle east and United Arab Emirates. Billions of dollars.  It’s true that it’s Hollywood and Bollywood that are what most screens will show but I think with determination I can pop our films on the odd screen now and again!  And we have to believe art has the power to influence and change….   Enjoy your day; why not walk down to your local gallery and pop in and say hi.  Talk to us on our facebook and Instagram sites – let us know which galleries and which painters you love.