Renoir and Pissarro | Different Views

Pissarro and Renoir met through their shared community of artists which included Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet, who introduced them. They met regularly at the Rue Boulevard des Batignolles and the Cafe Guerbois, where their vibrant exchange of ideas propelled the organisation of a movement. In 1874, they called themselves the Anonymous Cooperative Society of Artists and held the First Impressionist Exhibition at Atelier Nadar.

Subsequent editions of the Impressionist exhibition moved from Nadar's studio to the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel, who had a central role in championing Impressionism and making the works of both Renoir and Pissarro commercially viable. The dealer helped cement their reputations both in France and internationally, and organised one of the first exhibition of Impressionist works in London at Grafton Galleries.

Renoir was key in the planning and implementing of the Third Impressionist Show in 1877. There, he debuted Le Bal du Moulin de la Gallete, which Pissarro would later deem a 'masterpiece'. To commemorate the show, Renoir painted The Artist's Studio, Rue St. Georges (left), which depicts Georges Rivière in the centre with Pissarro to his left (his head in profile), Frédéric Cordey, Franc-Lamy, and Gustave Caillebotte.

Images: Nadar Atelier, 35 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris &  Renoir, The Artist's Studio, Rue St. Georges (1876, Norton Simon Art Foundation)

After the onset of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, Pissarro left his home in Paris, which was occupied by troops. He travelled to London, where, in the company of Monet, he was influenced by the works of Turner and Constable to create images full of brilliant light. In contrast, Renoir was conscripted and posted to Bordeaux during the conflict.

Pissarro travelled to London again in 1890 to visit his son Georges, producing a number of sketches for paintings of the city's bridges during his stay, including Old Chelsea Bridge, 1890 (Smith College Museum of Art).

Images: Pissarro, Old Chelsea Bridge, 1890 (Smith College Museum of Art) & Pissarro, Battersea Bridge, Chelsea, London, c.1890 (Connaught Brown, available)

By the late 1870s, a number of artists, including Renoir and Rivière, wanted to move away from being politicised, as appreciation for the Impressionists was now part of mainstream French culture. Renoir had thought Pissarro and his like-minded left wing alliances to be far too radical, and opted out of exhibitions that he saw as "too revolutionary".

This ideological divergence, felt at different moments throughout the history of the Impressionist group, was made most evident in the 1890s, with controversies over the Dreyfus affair. This issue, which remains a hugely divisive one in France to this day, came about with the wrongful condemnation of a Jewish army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, who was framed for treason due to what is now recognised as antisemitism.

Renoir’s anti-Dreyfus position is part of his relative conservatism and fear of anarchism, while Pissarro’s origins and alliances put him on the opposing side of the matter, signing the Manifesto of Intellectuals in support of Dreyfus. As such, this division became fundamental in shaping the relationship between Renoir and Pissarro. 

Image: Portrait of Camille Pissarro by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1893-4 (Dallas Museum of Art)