Camille Pissarro

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro born on 10th July 1830 and died 
on 13th November 1903. Pissarro was a Danish and French Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas. 

Pissarro was part of the post-impressionist movement and is the only artist to have shown his artwork in all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. As a leading impressionist artist, he is considered a "father figure" to all impressionist artists.

Towards the end of 1870 Pissarro and his family took refuge in England from the Franco-Prussian war. He stayed in Upper Norwood, London until June 1871. Many of the houses in this street have been rebuilt witch is a shame but the general view and the distinctive bend in the road and street still can be seen from Pissarro's painting.

I was interested to see what the Fox Hill in Upper Norwood looked like now in contrast to the painting, so i went onto Google images and i was surprised to see that many things have changed nearly everything was gone from the painting perhaps the tree in the far right of the painting was the same. You can still see the road shape but because it has been replaced with a modern road its hard to tell its the same place without looking really hard at the painting. I still think this is a beautiful representation of what Upper Norwood used to look like and i still wished it did look like this compared to what it looks like now, because it looked quiet peaceful back then and now it looks like any old urban road in West London.

I visited this painting in the National Gallery Museum in central London and when I saw it I was instantly drawn to it because of its peaceful softness to it, he hasn't used harsh bold line but more softer and gentle lines and tones to give it a peaceful vibe because maybe he wanted to portray what Fox Hill was like at the time he was painting it, if someone was to paint Fox Hill now there would probably be more harsh lines and tone because of the shapes of the buildings and the way western society likes to have things made perfectly with every house almost identical next to each other whereas before when the painting was painted by Pissarro it was more about the tranquiety of the place and how it looked like a peaceful village on the outskirts of London rather then the West Norwood we know today.