Young Peasant Having Her Coffee

Notes from the museum

In the 1880s, at a time when many of the original Impressionist painters had begun to pursue independent styles, Camille Pissarro actively worked to keep the group together. He persuaded Gustave Caillebotte and Claude Monet to take part in the seventh Impressionist exhibition, in 1882, and also displayed a number of his own paintings of peasant girls. Here the small brushstrokes, applied one next to the other and sometimes overlaid with dabs of thicker paint, result in an irregularly built-up surface, serving to integrate figure and setting and evoke the textures of the young woman’s wool clothing.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Camille Pissarro

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas. His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

Painter profile →