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Slide Cowherd by Water Pissarro BMA

Although Camille Pissarro, the Father of Impressionism who lived between 1830 & 1903, produced the largest graphic work of any Impressionist painter, 127 lithographs & 67 etchings, he never enjoyed the popularity of many of his contemporaries. [As hexsays [[he says]] in a letter to his son, "I can not help noting the gap between my sales & my reputation, which is great." And to quote another letter of 1891 "for truly the collectors understand only the engravings of Charles Jacques, Millet, Daubigny, &.several others, if even [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] It is enough to make one renounce the medium. Fortunately I only regard it asxa [[as a]] pastime."]

This charming etching of a Cowherd by Water is as touching though not so sentimental as most of the workmof [[work of]] the Barbizon school. Both Pissarro & Millet were peasants & neither lost belief in his roots. Millet returned to them nostalgically, unhappy in the city life. But Pissarro was of tougher fibre, as well as a deeper kindliness, & his was the greater mind, in fact, we have seen that he didn't think Millet had much of one. Pissarro managed a far broader range in his work; he could bring as sensitive a perception to a painting of a busy Paris street as he could to as simple a subject as this. The same high sense of order existed in both.

This sense of order was in Pissarro to a very rare degree. Through it he was sympathetic, wise, & full of a remarkable patience. He is an artist who should be better known by the general public & there is nothing disturbing in his work to make it unattractive. There is a certain unspectacular quality that doesn't make the casual looker stop long enough to realise the great qualities in it.