The French painter and graphic artist Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) is considered one of the founders of French Impressionism. Next to Monet and Sisley, he was one of the first impressionist landscape painter. He was never tired, and emmer to paint the same nature neck back in a variety of moods and lighting to capture the changing colours of light. He focuses in his late works on urban life. In addition to numerous paintings he left over 200 etchings and lithographs. For the conception of art of his time to correspondence with his son Lucien is an important witness.

Born on 07.10.1830 in the Lesser Antilles island St.Thomas Pissarro began in 1852 for two years to paint in Caracas with a friend, and then in 1855 to study in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Suisse Academie. In the pictures of this time, highly-toned mood landscapes, particularly the influence of Corot style can be felt. Only through his contact with Claude Monet in 1859, the impressionistic elements reinforced in his painting. To a free handling of the colour to reflect air and light impressions, he found after a visit to London in 1870/71 through the study of Turner's paintings.

Back in France he worked closely with Paul Cézanne in Pontoise and Auvers-sur-Oise. There he created his first still life. A phase of pointillism is to 1885 due to contact with George Seurat. He became one of the most important artists of this style through his involvement with the independent exhibitions of the Impressionists. However, the 90s brought the father of seven children, the desired artistic recognition. His solo exhibitions in Paris, where he died at the 13.11.1903, were great successes. There are now no longer fields, meadows and orchards but the city with its many faces in the centre of his choice. Today his images are distinguished by a high degree of freedom, Fresh and beguiling colours.

The field of graphic arts, that includes artistic representations, which are reproduced by various printing techniques.

Printmaking techniques include woodcuts, copperplate engraving, etching, lithography, serigraphy.

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Heliogravure
Woodcut
Copperplate engraving
Etching
Lithography
Serigraphy (Silk-screen printing)

The style of Impressionism that emerged in French painting in 1870 owes its name to the Claude Monet's landscape 'Impression, Soleil Levant'. After initial refusal it began a true triumphant advance.

Such painters as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and others created motifs from everyday life, urban and landscape scenes in a bright, natural light.

Impressionism can be seen as a reaction to the academic painting. The emphasis was not on content with its strict rules of painting structure, but on the object as it appears at any given moment, in an often random cut out. The reality was seen in its whole color variety in natural lighting. The studio painting was replaced by the open-air painting.

The brightening of the palette and the dissolution of firm contours was accompanied by a new way of handling with color. Often, the colors were no longer mixed on the palette but side by side on the canvas so that the final impression lies in the eye of the beholder with a certain distance. In "Pointillism", (with such painters as Georges Seurat or Paul Signac) this principle was carried to the extreme.

Outside France, Impressionism was taken up by such painters as Max Slevogt, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth in Germany, and by James A. M. Whistler in the United States.

In sculpture, the impressionism expressed itself only conditionally. In the works of Auguste Rodin, who is considered one of the main representatives, you can see a resolution of the surfaces in which the play of light and shadow is included in the artistic expression. Degas and Renoir created sculptures as well.