gentle Pissarro

This painting is "The Stage Coach at Louveciennes - 1870"

I have a great love for Camille Pissarro whose paintings of rural French life make me deeply happy; if possible, I would walk inside one. He was born in 1830 and died in 1903. I find his use of color particularly beautiful. He did not have Claude Monet's gift for putting himself forward nor Renoir's for portraiture, and so he remained fairly poor all his life. His paintings are worth millions now but towards the end of his life he sometimes did not have the train fare to go to Paris to try to sell his work. His collected "Letters to His Son Lucien" are remarkable and his portraits of his several children very tender. When he began to paint, the great Corot stood up for him; in later years he mentored Cézanne and Gauguin. Cézanne said, "Pissarro was a father to me...something like the good Lord.”