WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.399 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are immersing 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:04.379 ourselves in the extraordinary life and work 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:07.379 of a painter whose name is, well, synonymous 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:10.060 with the dawn of modern art, but maybe his foundational 00:00:10.060 --> 00:00:13.019 role gets overlooked a bit too often. Jacob Abraham 00:00:13.019 --> 00:00:16.559 Camille Pizarro. Pizarro, yeah, lived 1830 to 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:20.309 1903, and he's truly one of the most... unique 00:00:20.309 --> 00:00:22.690 figures in art history. We're looking at a Danish 00:00:22.690 --> 00:00:25.030 -French painter, an anarchist by conviction, 00:00:25.149 --> 00:00:27.690 an immigrant by circumstance. Right. And yet 00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:30.890 somehow he managed to be this stabilizing foundational 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:33.750 force, really the indispensable bridge for not 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:37.229 just one, but two radical art movements, Impressionism 00:00:37.229 --> 00:00:40.090 and then quite surprisingly, Neo -Impressionism. 00:00:40.109 --> 00:00:41.929 So our mission today, it's pretty straightforward. 00:00:42.229 --> 00:00:44.429 We want to understand how Pizarro got this unique 00:00:44.429 --> 00:00:46.869 status, you know, moving from this radical outsider 00:00:46.869 --> 00:00:49.640 to the movement's revered patriarch. He wasn't 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:52.320 just in the group. He was the anchor. We're exploring 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:55.659 his, well, wildly unconventional origins in the 00:00:55.659 --> 00:00:58.159 Caribbean, his relentless artistic adaptability, 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:01.000 his fierce political convictions, and also the 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:03.359 painful, complicated legacy of his masterpieces 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:06.040 today, especially concerning Nazi looted art. 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.859 Absolutely. And it's essential, I think, to establish 00:01:09.859 --> 00:01:11.799 his true stature right away. He wasn't just one 00:01:11.799 --> 00:01:13.700 of the Impressionists. The renowned art historian 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:16.140 John Riewold, he actually called him the Dean 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:18.340 of the Impressionist painters. The Dean, yeah. 00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:20.040 And that wasn't just because he was the oldest 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:22.239 one in the core group, though he was. It was 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:26.019 more about his personality balanced, kind, really 00:01:26.019 --> 00:01:29.000 warm -hearted. He had this sort of inherent wisdom 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:32.060 that made him the glue, you know, holding those 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:35.920 often volatile, ego -driven young artists. together. 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:38.939 And if you want like the ultimate proof of that 00:01:38.939 --> 00:01:41.019 commitment, that pivotal role. Yeah. Think about 00:01:41.019 --> 00:01:44.040 this. Pizarro is the only artist who showed work 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:47.260 at all eight official Paris Impressionist exhibitions. 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:50.379 Every single one. From the very first totally 00:01:50.379 --> 00:01:53.200 revolutionary exhibit in 1874 all the way to 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:55.900 the final one in 1886. That level of dedication, 00:01:56.099 --> 00:01:58.120 that consistency into the group through all the 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:00.879 ups and downs. Well, it's just unmatched. Not 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:03.480 by Monet, not Renoir, not Degas. Unmatched. It 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:05.420 really says something. Okay. Let's unpack this 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:08.439 then. Start at the beginning. Pissarro's roots 00:02:08.439 --> 00:02:12.900 are, well, far, far away from the cafes of 19th 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:16.960 century Paris. He was born July 10th, 1830, in 00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:19.360 Charlotte, Emily, St. Thomas. Which was then 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:21.740 the Danish West Indies. Now, of course, it's 00:02:21.740 --> 00:02:24.319 part of the U .S. Virgin Islands. Right. And 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:27.300 his background is this complex, really fascinating 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:31.919 mix right from the start. His father was of Portuguese 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:35.039 Jewish descent, but actually held French nationality. 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:37.639 He'd moved to the Caribbean for business. His 00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:39.800 mother was also from a French Jewish family living 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:42.020 out there. And the sources, they highlight this 00:02:42.020 --> 00:02:44.840 really unique family drama that seems to have 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:47.099 shaped his early life quite a bit. Yes, that's 00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:49.039 right. It's where the sort of standard narrative 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:51.259 takes a bit of a turn. The drama was about his 00:02:51.259 --> 00:02:53.719 parents' marriage. His father, you see, married 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:56.520 his deceased uncle's widow. His aunt, effectively. 00:02:56.740 --> 00:02:59.539 His aunt, yes. Union, it was considered pretty 00:02:59.539 --> 00:03:01.439 controversial within their religious community 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:04.199 back then. Marrying your aunt was generally forbidden 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:06.580 under traditional Jewish law at the time. What 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:08.620 were the consequences? Well, because of this 00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:10.639 controversy, Pizarro and his siblings, they were 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:12.659 actually barred from attending the local Jewish 00:03:12.659 --> 00:03:15.639 school. Wow. Which forced them into this very 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:19.060 unusual educational path for, you know, a white 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:22.199 European kid in the colonies. Then Pizarro ended 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:25.319 up being sent to an all black primary school. 00:03:25.419 --> 00:03:28.400 That's. That's a really crucial detail, isn't 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:30.560 it? It is. It gives you some early context for 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.680 his lifelong egalitarian views, his political 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:36.659 leanings, and maybe even his consistent focus 00:03:36.659 --> 00:03:39.680 on the common person, the working people, in 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.060 his art. It must have given him a kind of outsider's 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:44.620 perspective right from childhood. Then, when 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:47.500 he was 12, his father sends him back across the 00:03:47.500 --> 00:03:50.159 Atlantic to boarding school in Passy near Paris. 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:52.539 So he gets exposed to European culture, the French 00:03:52.539 --> 00:03:55.340 masters. But it wasn't really the academic stuff 00:03:55.340 --> 00:03:57.500 that stuck with him. him most, it seems. It was 00:03:57.500 --> 00:04:00.219 a teacher, Monsieur Savary, who gave him this 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:02.280 piece of advice that apparently guided him for 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:05.620 life. When you go back home to St. Thomas, draw 00:04:05.620 --> 00:04:07.759 from nature. Draw from nature. And that really 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.800 resonated. It stuck hard. When he got back to 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:14.280 St. Thomas around 16, he spent five years working 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:17.139 pretty reluctantly as a port clerk in his father's 00:04:17.139 --> 00:04:19.500 business. Didn't want to be there. No. Clearly 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:23.540 saw it as something he had to do. But he used 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:26.680 every break, every lunch hour, evenings, practicing 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:29.060 drawing, drawing the port life, the landscape, 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.680 the people all around him. He was just dedicated 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:34.100 to capturing life as he saw it. And there was 00:04:34.100 --> 00:04:36.000 a specific artistic influence around this time, 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:38.420 too, wasn't there? Someone who kind of solidified 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:41.060 this wasn't just a hobby. Yes. The sources point 00:04:41.060 --> 00:04:43.759 to a British painter and geologist, James Gay 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.480 Salkins. He lived nearby, sketched the local 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.220 environment, Pizarro saw his work, got inspired, 00:04:49.459 --> 00:04:51.680 and really started focusing on drawing the local 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.160 African population, moving away from, you know, 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.819 classical European subjects. There's a visual 00:04:56.819 --> 00:04:59.699 theorist, Nicholas Mirzow, who specifically calls 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.519 these early works sketches for a post -slavery 00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:05.220 imagination. Interesting framing. Very. And that 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:07.620 experience drawing local everyday life, not the 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:10.079 idealized stuff the European academies wanted. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:13.379 That seems to be the catalyst. At age 21, Pizarro 00:05:13.379 --> 00:05:15.600 makes the big break. Inspired by another artist. 00:05:15.779 --> 00:05:19.079 Right. A Danish artist named Fritz Melby. Pizarro 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:21.899 basically decides that's it. He leaves his family 00:05:21.899 --> 00:05:24.579 obligations, quits the business and takes off 00:05:24.579 --> 00:05:27.730 for two years to be an artist in Venezuela. Caracas, 00:05:27.829 --> 00:05:30.649 La Guaira. Just immersing himself. Totally. Filling 00:05:30.649 --> 00:05:32.649 up sketchbook after sketchbook. The commitment 00:05:32.649 --> 00:05:35.970 was, you know, absolute. No turning back. So 00:05:35.970 --> 00:05:38.290 he gets this incredible kind of nontraditional 00:05:38.290 --> 00:05:40.310 foundation in the Caribbean and South America, 00:05:40.509 --> 00:05:43.750 drawing nature, working life, giving him this 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:48.509 unique perspective. Then, 1855, age 25, he makes 00:05:48.509 --> 00:05:51.170 the big move back to Paris, the center of the 00:05:51.170 --> 00:05:54.449 art world. He gets there, studies hard. absorbs 00:05:54.449 --> 00:05:56.850 the work of established, maybe slightly less 00:05:56.850 --> 00:05:59.769 rigid masters like Courbet, Millet, and the Barbizon 00:05:59.769 --> 00:06:02.149 pinker, Corot. He did enroll in the official 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:04.029 places, the École des Beaux -Arts, the Académie 00:06:04.029 --> 00:06:07.110 Suisse. But, like so many future revolutionaries, 00:06:07.170 --> 00:06:10.689 he quickly found the formal, rigid teaching methods 00:06:10.689 --> 00:06:14.329 stifling. That's the word John Rewald uses. He 00:06:14.329 --> 00:06:16.889 wasn't interested in idealized forms. He wanted 00:06:16.889 --> 00:06:19.269 truth. And this is where Corot becomes important, 00:06:19.509 --> 00:06:22.779 at least initially. Exactly. Pissarro sought 00:06:22.779 --> 00:06:25.480 him out directly for instruction. They shared 00:06:25.480 --> 00:06:28.500 this deep love of rural scenes painted directly 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:30.839 from nature, that whole plein air technique. 00:06:31.500 --> 00:06:34.300 Pissarro saw Corot's work, and Croubet's too, 00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:38.350 as powerful statements of pictorial truth. Did 00:06:38.350 --> 00:06:40.750 Corot help him? Oh, yes. Corot was apparently 00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:43.610 quite generous. Gave him advice, taught him about 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:46.029 balancing the canvas, you know, work at the same 00:06:46.029 --> 00:06:49.750 time upon sky, water, branches, ground, keep 00:06:49.750 --> 00:06:52.170 everything going equally. But there was a disagreement 00:06:52.170 --> 00:06:54.769 eventually, right? A split. There was. A philosophical 00:06:54.769 --> 00:06:57.170 and technical one. Corot, like most painters 00:06:57.170 --> 00:06:59.649 then, would use his outdoor sketches as studies, 00:06:59.689 --> 00:07:02.470 but he'd finish the actual paintings or rework 00:07:02.470 --> 00:07:04.829 them heavily back in the studio. Standard practice. 00:07:05.149 --> 00:07:07.920 Right. But Pizarro, he insisted. on finishing 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:10.220 his paintings outdoors, often in one sitting, 00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:12.800 trying to capture that raw, immediate feeling 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:15.720 of the moment, that visual truth, unrevised. 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:18.240 And that didn't do down well. No. That immediacy, 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:20.720 that insistence on, let's say, unpolished reality, 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:24.139 it was highly controversial in Paris. The critics, 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:26.100 well, they pretty much hated it. Why? What was 00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:28.120 the specific criticism? His work was sometimes 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:31.399 called vulgar, aesthetically vulgar, because 00:07:31.399 --> 00:07:34.079 he painted the unglamorous stuff the academic 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:36.699 masters carefully left out. Like what? Like the 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:40.720 actual landscape. The rutted and edged hodgepodge 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:43.660 of bushes, mounds of earth, and trees in various 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:46.319 stages of development. He showed the mud, the 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:48.560 messiness, the imperfection. Which is the opposite 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:50.959 of what Freud was supposed to do back then. Exactly. 00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:54.439 Art was meant to elevate, to idealize. Pizarro 00:07:54.439 --> 00:07:56.860 was showing reality, warts and all. It's pretty 00:07:56.860 --> 00:07:59.160 striking, isn't it, that his insistence on... 00:07:59.370 --> 00:08:01.949 This unadulterated reality, which you can trace 00:08:01.949 --> 00:08:04.689 right back to his Caribbean beginnings, immediately 00:08:04.689 --> 00:08:06.790 puts him at odds with the establishment. And 00:08:06.790 --> 00:08:09.149 becomes the very foundation for his path towards 00:08:09.149 --> 00:08:11.730 Impressionism. It defined him as the group's 00:08:11.730 --> 00:08:14.329 truth teller, in a way. Okay, so that friction 00:08:14.329 --> 00:08:16.790 with the Salon establishment is really what starts 00:08:16.790 --> 00:08:18.410 to bring the Impressionists together, right? 00:08:18.490 --> 00:08:20.970 Precisely. While he was studying at the Académie 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:23.509 Suisse, which was a free school, Pizarro started 00:08:23.509 --> 00:08:25.350 connecting with these younger artists who were 00:08:25.350 --> 00:08:27.689 just as frustrated. People like Claude Monet, 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:31.329 the famously difficult Paul Cézanne. And Armand 00:08:31.329 --> 00:08:34.669 Guillemin, too. And Guillemin, yes. And Pizarro's 00:08:34.669 --> 00:08:38.309 role as this sort of spiritual leader, it started 00:08:38.309 --> 00:08:41.029 early, especially with Cézanne. Cézanne's early 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:44.970 stuff was wild, unrefined. Mocked, wasn't it? 00:08:45.049 --> 00:08:48.259 Routinely mocked by the public and critics. But 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:51.740 Pissarro, he offered him genuine, crucial encouragement. 00:08:52.449 --> 00:08:55.070 Rewald notes Cezanne never forgot the sympathy 00:08:55.070 --> 00:08:57.629 and understanding Pizarro gave him back then. 00:08:57.769 --> 00:08:59.570 That bond must have been incredibly important 00:08:59.570 --> 00:09:02.970 for Cezanne. Oh, huge. Cezanne later said, Pizarro 00:09:02.970 --> 00:09:05.730 was a father for me, a man to consult, and a 00:09:05.730 --> 00:09:07.950 little like the good lord. Imagine hearing that 00:09:07.950 --> 00:09:10.090 from the experienced Pizarro when everyone else 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:12.769 is laughing at your work. It speaks volumes about 00:09:12.769 --> 00:09:15.230 Pizarro's character, patient, generous. So their 00:09:15.230 --> 00:09:17.830 shared frustration with the Salon, it boils over 00:09:17.830 --> 00:09:21.230 with the famous Salon de Refusé in 1863. Great. 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:23.940 The official salon jury rejected almost everything 00:09:23.940 --> 00:09:26.340 submitted by these future impressionists. So 00:09:26.340 --> 00:09:29.860 Emperor Napoleon III, perhaps surprisingly, creates 00:09:29.860 --> 00:09:31.960 this separate exhibition hall for the rejects. 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:34.740 The salon of the refused. A big moment. The first 00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:37.100 major public challenge to state controlled art. 00:09:37.340 --> 00:09:40.179 Absolutely. Even though the show itself was mostly 00:09:40.179 --> 00:09:42.539 met with hostility, ridicule from the public. 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:45.399 It was pivotal. And interestingly, in that first 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.019 refusé show from that core group, it was only 00:09:48.019 --> 00:09:50.379 Pizarro and Cezanne who actually had works included. 00:09:50.779 --> 00:09:53.019 Solidifying them as the earliest rebels in a 00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:55.899 way. Yes. And that failure to get official approval, 00:09:56.059 --> 00:09:58.019 it just strengthened their resolve that they 00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:00.700 needed total independence. You see Pizarro make 00:10:00.700 --> 00:10:03.120 his own Declaration of Artistic Freedom a few 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:05.919 years later in 1868. How so? In the official 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.460 Salon catalog for that year, he deliberately 00:10:08.460 --> 00:10:11.919 stops listing Corot or Mel B as his influences. 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:14.360 He's basically saying, I stand on my own now. 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:16.860 This is my style. Did people notice? Oh, yeah. 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.799 Critics like Emil Zola certainly did. Zola recognized 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:23.379 this independence, praised him, called him one 00:10:23.379 --> 00:10:25.580 of the three or four true painters of this day. 00:10:25.820 --> 00:10:28.539 What's fascinating here is how Pizarro then goes 00:10:28.539 --> 00:10:31.159 from being this rebellious painter to actually 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:33.779 organizing the movement. That's the crucial next 00:10:33.779 --> 00:10:36.679 step. He realized just complaining wasn't enough. 00:10:36.779 --> 00:10:39.460 They needed their own system. Pissarro was the 00:10:39.460 --> 00:10:41.639 one really pushing the group towards setting 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:44.299 up a dedicated, independent alternative to the 00:10:44.299 --> 00:10:47.240 salon. He knew they'd never achieve their vision 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.460 if they kept relying on the establishment. And 00:10:49.460 --> 00:10:51.659 he didn't just push. He actually engineered it. 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:55.039 He did. In 1873, he was instrumental in setting 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:57.779 up the collective, the Société Anonyme des Artistes, 00:10:57.860 --> 00:11:01.240 Pantros, Sculpteurs et Graveurs, a really radical 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.460 structure for the time, 15 artists initially. 00:11:03.659 --> 00:11:05.919 He actually wrote the group's first charter. 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:08.519 Contemporaries called him the pivotal figure, 00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:11.039 holding them all together, navigating all those 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:13.000 different artistic temperaments. What was so 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:15.019 radical about the structure itself? Well, it 00:11:15.019 --> 00:11:17.659 was anonymous societé anonyme, meaning the state 00:11:17.659 --> 00:11:19.759 couldn't easily interfere. It was designed to 00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:22.340 be anti -establishment, self -sufficient. And 00:11:22.340 --> 00:11:24.679 Pissarro, you know, with his prematurely gray 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.659 beard, his calm manner, he was seen by everyone 00:11:27.659 --> 00:11:30.639 as the wise elder and father figure, the one 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:33.139 who could mediate between Monet and Degas or 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:35.740 keep Cezanne involved. And this collective then 00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:40.100 launches the big one, the 1874 First Impressionist 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:43.019 Exhibition, which famously got its name from 00:11:43.019 --> 00:11:45.039 a critique of a Monet painting in that show. 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:46.799 Exactly. And it didn't just meet resistance. 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:49.779 It shocked and horrified the critics and the 00:11:49.779 --> 00:11:52.919 public. They were used to highly polished traditional 00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:56.440 scenes, religious, historical, mythological. 00:11:56.779 --> 00:11:58.700 So let's break down why it was so revolutionary. 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:01.220 The sources point to three main areas of criticism. 00:12:01.299 --> 00:12:04.230 Yes. First, the subject matter. We talked about 00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:06.490 this with Pizarro earlier, but it applied to 00:12:06.490 --> 00:12:08.830 the group. The scenes were considered vulgar. 00:12:09.129 --> 00:12:11.830 Because they painted what? Muddy roads? Muddy 00:12:11.830 --> 00:12:14.509 roads, factories, dirty riverbanks, just scenes 00:12:14.509 --> 00:12:17.830 of everyday workers, peasants, the unfiltered 00:12:17.830 --> 00:12:20.990 reality of modern life, not some idealized past 00:12:20.990 --> 00:12:24.110 or myth. Okay, second area, the technique. Right. 00:12:24.210 --> 00:12:26.929 The paintings looked sketchy, incomplete to eyes, 00:12:26.990 --> 00:12:29.669 used to salon smoothness. Impressionists used 00:12:29.669 --> 00:12:32.269 visible brushwork, often applied paint wet on 00:12:32.269 --> 00:12:35.110 wet. They tried to finish a work quickly in one 00:12:35.110 --> 00:12:37.309 sitting to capture that fleeting moment of light. 00:12:37.580 --> 00:12:39.379 which is the total opposite of traditional methods. 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:43.580 Completely. Salon paintings took weeks, layers, 00:12:43.860 --> 00:12:47.279 drying, glazing, aiming for that smooth, invisible 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:50.620 finish. To critics, Pizarro and the others looked 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:53.539 like amateurs showing unfinished sketches. It 00:12:53.539 --> 00:12:55.639 felt like an insult to craftsmanship, to the 00:12:55.639 --> 00:12:58.259 hard work that defined proper art. And the third 00:12:58.259 --> 00:13:01.529 big criticism, color use. This was maybe the 00:13:01.529 --> 00:13:04.450 most radical part. They were applying new ideas 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:07.330 about optics, painting shadows not just with 00:13:07.330 --> 00:13:09.870 black or gray, but with the reflected light of 00:13:09.870 --> 00:13:12.769 things around them using blues, purples, even 00:13:12.769 --> 00:13:15.049 oranges and shadows. Breaking all the academic 00:13:15.049 --> 00:13:17.409 rules of modeling and shading. Totally breaking 00:13:17.409 --> 00:13:19.529 the rules taught in every academy. It looked 00:13:19.529 --> 00:13:22.509 unnatural, jarring to conventional viewers. So 00:13:22.509 --> 00:13:24.909 Seurat's commitment to capturing this observed 00:13:24.909 --> 00:13:27.929 reality, even the ugly bits, it was central to 00:13:27.929 --> 00:13:29.909 the whole Impressionist revolution. Absolutely. 00:13:30.029 --> 00:13:32.429 Journalist Octavio Mirbeau wrote that Pissarro 00:13:32.429 --> 00:13:34.610 has been a revolutionary through the revitalized 00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:36.509 working methods with which he has endowed painting. 00:13:36.769 --> 00:13:39.529 His goal, as Riewald put it, was to be an objective 00:13:39.529 --> 00:13:42.190 chronicler, showing peasants without any pose 00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:44.830 in their habitual surroundings, just unvarnished 00:13:44.830 --> 00:13:47.450 truth. But this crucial period, this revolution, 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:50.070 it gets violently interrupted, doesn't it? By 00:13:50.070 --> 00:13:53.990 the Franco -Prussian War of 1870 -71. Yes. A 00:13:53.990 --> 00:13:57.340 major disruption. Pissarro... Because he only 00:13:57.340 --> 00:13:59.399 held Danish nationality, couldn't join the French 00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:01.600 army, so he had to move his family for safety. 00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:04.340 They went to Norwood, near London. Which was 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:05.879 then just a village on the edge of the city. 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.919 Right. But those London years, despite the upheaval, 00:14:09.019 --> 00:14:12.080 were surprisingly important professionally. It's 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:15.080 there he connects with Paul Duran Rule. The dealer. 00:14:15.259 --> 00:14:17.440 The dealer who would become his main long -term 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:20.179 supporter. Finally, a reliable way to sell his 00:14:20.179 --> 00:14:22.460 work. He also met up with Monet, who was also 00:14:22.460 --> 00:14:24.500 in London as a refugee. And they went gallery 00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:27.179 hopping. They did. Visited London galleries, 00:14:27.299 --> 00:14:29.679 saw the work of British landscape painters like 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:32.460 John Constable and J .M .W. Turner, and seeing 00:14:32.460 --> 00:14:34.740 that energy, that light and atmosphere in their 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:37.879 open -air paintings. It just confirmed for Pizarro 00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:40.419 and Monet that this was the way forward, capturing 00:14:40.419 --> 00:14:42.620 transient effects from nature. But the personal 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:44.320 cost of the war, when he got back, Back to France. 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:47.519 Yeah. It was devastating. Truly devastating. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:50.019 When Pizarro finally returned to his home in 00:14:50.019 --> 00:14:53.299 Louvicien, the destruction was just staggering. 00:14:53.820 --> 00:14:56.220 He'd been forced to leave behind maybe 1 ,500 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.460 paintings. 1 ,500. That's the estimate, representing 00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:02.200 20 years of his work, his entire artistic development 00:15:02.200 --> 00:15:05.220 up to that point. And when he got back, only 00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:08.740 40 remained. 40 out of 1 ,500? What happened 00:15:08.740 --> 00:15:11.279 to them? The soldiers occupying the area had 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:13.669 used them. Well, reports say they often use the 00:15:13.669 --> 00:15:16.889 canvases as floor mats outside in the mud to 00:15:16.889 --> 00:15:20.009 clean their boots. Oh, my God. That's horrific. 00:15:20.429 --> 00:15:23.529 Just unimaginable. Two decades of work literally 00:15:23.529 --> 00:15:26.090 trampled into the mud. It's an almost unbelievable 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:28.529 level of destruction. Think about the loss not 00:15:28.529 --> 00:15:30.690 just for him, but for art history. How did he 00:15:30.690 --> 00:15:32.990 even cope with that? And what does it mean for 00:15:32.990 --> 00:15:35.029 how we understand his development? It's hard 00:15:35.029 --> 00:15:37.690 to fathom the personal blow. But historically, 00:15:38.070 --> 00:15:41.490 it creates this huge, painful gap. Historians 00:15:41.490 --> 00:15:43.850 suggest those lost works document the birth of 00:15:43.850 --> 00:15:46.009 Impressionism, the crucial pieces showing his 00:15:46.009 --> 00:15:48.210 transition from Coro's student to Impressionist 00:15:48.210 --> 00:15:51.090 leader. Their destruction means we're piecing 00:15:51.090 --> 00:15:53.889 together that story from just 40 scattered survivors. 00:15:54.370 --> 00:15:56.649 Yet he didn't give up. That's the thing about 00:15:56.649 --> 00:16:00.350 Pizarro. His tenacity is just incredible. He 00:16:00.350 --> 00:16:03.110 returned, found the 40 survivors, and immediately 00:16:03.110 --> 00:16:06.509 started rebuilding. Rebuilding his career, rebuilding 00:16:06.509 --> 00:16:10.009 the movement from scratch. So Pizarro's art... 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:11.820 Even when it looked like a peaceful landscape, 00:16:12.100 --> 00:16:14.519 it often had this political undercurrent, didn't 00:16:14.519 --> 00:16:16.879 it? Stemming from his personal beliefs. Very 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:19.259 much so. This wasn't just about style. It was 00:16:19.259 --> 00:16:21.700 rooted in his deeply held political convictions. 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:25.100 He was seriously involved in anarchist circles. 00:16:25.480 --> 00:16:28.059 He's subscribed to radical publications like 00:16:28.059 --> 00:16:30.620 Le Revolté, corresponded with anarchist thinkers 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:34.620 like Jean Grave. He strongly believed in egalitarianism, 00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:37.039 anti -authoritarianism. And this comes out most 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:39.980 clearly in one specific project, right? Turpitudes 00:16:39.980 --> 00:16:42.539 social. Exactly. Social turpitudes, a series 00:16:42.539 --> 00:16:45.799 of 30 drawings he did in 1889. And these weren't 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:48.059 paintings meant for sale. They were intimate, 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:51.299 powerful drawings using caricature, allegory, 00:16:51.299 --> 00:16:54.320 specifically to critique modern society, poverty, 00:16:54.580 --> 00:16:57.220 corruption, the abuses of capitalism. And the 00:16:57.220 --> 00:16:58.820 purpose was an exhibition, which is interesting. 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:01.320 No, not at all. The whole album was actually 00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:03.480 intended as a gift for his niece, apparently 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:06.140 to help encourage her own developing anarchist 00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:09.180 views. It shows how he saw art as a potential 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:12.440 tool for instruction for revolution, even outside 00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:14.900 the commercial market. But even in his paintings 00:17:14.900 --> 00:17:17.420 for the market, his choice of subject was seen 00:17:17.420 --> 00:17:20.200 as political, wasn't it? Yes, even if it wasn't 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:23.599 overtly propagandistic. He mostly painted humble 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:26.440 subjects, peasants working, market scenes, even 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:28.559 though his buyers were mainly wealthy Parisians. 00:17:29.180 --> 00:17:31.259 Renoir, who was much less political himself, 00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:33.859 actually called Pizarro's work from this time 00:17:33.859 --> 00:17:37.259 revolutionary, simply for portraying the common 00:17:37.259 --> 00:17:40.339 man with such objective realism. No idealizing, 00:17:40.339 --> 00:17:42.819 no sentimentalizing their labor, just showing 00:17:42.819 --> 00:17:45.069 it. And this commitment to radical exploration, 00:17:45.349 --> 00:17:48.170 it didn't just stop with politics. It exploded 00:17:48.170 --> 00:17:50.029 into his painting technique again in the mid 00:17:50.029 --> 00:17:52.910 -1880s. It really did. By this point, even though 00:17:52.910 --> 00:17:55.369 he was the stable dean of Impressionism, Pizarro 00:17:55.369 --> 00:17:58.109 felt he was kind of stuck in an artistic mire, 00:17:58.130 --> 00:18:01.309 as he put it. He felt Impressionism had maybe 00:18:01.309 --> 00:18:03.950 become a bit formulaic, too spontaneous perhaps, 00:18:04.250 --> 00:18:06.569 lacking intellectual depth. He started looking 00:18:06.569 --> 00:18:09.089 for something new. And what he did next was pretty 00:18:09.089 --> 00:18:11.549 shocking for everyone, right? Signaled the end 00:18:11.549 --> 00:18:13.849 of impressionism as a unified group. Absolutely 00:18:13.849 --> 00:18:16.609 shocking. He started exploring pointillism, this 00:18:16.609 --> 00:18:19.109 highly rigorous, calculated, almost scientific 00:18:19.109 --> 00:18:21.349 style that seemed like the total opposite of 00:18:21.349 --> 00:18:24.170 impressionist spontaneity and immediacy. And 00:18:24.170 --> 00:18:27.349 his son, Jochen Pizarro, the art historian, notes 00:18:27.349 --> 00:18:30.690 the impact was huge. He wrote that when such 00:18:30.690 --> 00:18:33.289 a diehard impressionist as Pizarro had turned 00:18:33.289 --> 00:18:35.670 his back on impressionism, it was apparent that 00:18:35.670 --> 00:18:38.009 impressionism had no chance of surviving. He 00:18:38.009 --> 00:18:40.630 was the anchor. If the anchor shifts that dramatically. 00:18:40.890 --> 00:18:43.859 The ship breaks apart. Pretty much. In 1885, 00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:46.819 he meets Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, the 00:18:46.819 --> 00:18:49.740 pioneers of neo -impressionism, and Pissarro 00:18:49.740 --> 00:18:51.740 just takes on their pointless technique. Which 00:18:51.740 --> 00:18:54.460 involves? It's based on optical theory. Using 00:18:54.460 --> 00:18:57.559 these tiny, very controlled dots or patches of 00:18:57.559 --> 00:19:00.160 pure, unmixed color, the idea is that your eye 00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:02.859 blends the colors from a distance. So it's incredibly 00:19:02.859 --> 00:19:05.440 time -consuming and laborious. Extremely. Which 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:08.069 is the striking paradox, right? Pizarro, the 00:19:08.069 --> 00:19:11.049 anarchist who valued spontaneous truth, embraces 00:19:11.049 --> 00:19:13.950 this highly structured scientific method. A total 00:19:13.950 --> 00:19:16.390 philosophical shift. From capturing fleeting 00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:19.289 sensations to aiming for scientific control, 00:19:19.609 --> 00:19:22.549 he practiced pornalism seriously for about three 00:19:22.549 --> 00:19:26.630 years, 1885 to 1888. He even exhibited these 00:19:26.630 --> 00:19:29.390 works alongside Seurat and Signac in a separate 00:19:29.390 --> 00:19:31.430 section at the final Impressionist exhibition 00:19:31.430 --> 00:19:34.990 in 1886. How did people react to Pizarro doing 00:19:34.990 --> 00:19:38.069 this? Critics were amazed. really. They noted 00:19:38.069 --> 00:19:40.990 his extraordinary capacity to change his art, 00:19:41.089 --> 00:19:43.490 revise his position, and take on new challenges. 00:19:43.970 --> 00:19:47.089 He was literally the only artist who went from 00:19:47.089 --> 00:19:49.670 Impressionism to Neo -Impressionism. Did he try 00:19:49.670 --> 00:19:51.849 to justify it? He did. He tried to explain it 00:19:51.849 --> 00:19:54.250 to his friends as a phase in the logical march 00:19:54.250 --> 00:19:57.029 of Impressionism, but you get the sense his heart 00:19:57.029 --> 00:19:59.349 wasn't fully in it long term. He was, at his 00:19:59.349 --> 00:20:02.190 core, that truth seeker. And eventually he abandoned 00:20:02.190 --> 00:20:05.289 it. He did. He found the strict system too academic, 00:20:05.369 --> 00:20:07.809 too restrictive, He was very clear why he left 00:20:07.809 --> 00:20:09.910 it. He called it impossible to be true to my 00:20:09.910 --> 00:20:12.009 sensations and consequently to render life and 00:20:12.009 --> 00:20:14.950 movement. Impossible to be faithful to the effects, 00:20:15.170 --> 00:20:19.450 so random and so admirable of nature. It sacrificed 00:20:19.450 --> 00:20:22.150 the soul of the moment for the structure of the 00:20:22.150 --> 00:20:24.970 science, basically. But that period wasn't wasted, 00:20:25.089 --> 00:20:27.710 was it? Did it change his later work when he 00:20:27.710 --> 00:20:30.279 went back? Not at all wasted. when he returned 00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:32.640 to a more impressionistic style sources note 00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:34.880 his work actually gained something it became 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:37.519 more subtle his color scheme more refined his 00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:40.720 drawing firmer he absorbed the discipline the 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:43.559 structure without losing the spontaneity he integrated 00:20:43.559 --> 00:20:46.900 it and his stature even after this detour remained 00:20:46.900 --> 00:20:50.259 huge people still looked up to him Immense. His 00:20:50.259 --> 00:20:52.700 contemporaries kept seeking him out. They universally 00:20:52.700 --> 00:20:55.500 called him Père Pissarro, Father Pissarro, still 00:20:55.500 --> 00:20:58.019 the wise counsel of modern art. He was an incredible 00:20:58.019 --> 00:21:01.019 mentor, wasn't he, to the next generation? Unparalleled. 00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:03.559 Provided validation, technical advice. Let's 00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:05.519 just look at three major figures he influenced. 00:21:05.900 --> 00:21:08.359 Paul Gauguin, notoriously difficult, studied 00:21:08.359 --> 00:21:11.180 under him. Gauguin called Pissarro a force with 00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:13.319 which future artists would have to reckon. And 00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:14.859 even later, when they'd grown apart, Gauguin 00:21:14.859 --> 00:21:17.119 wrote, He was one of my masters, and I do not 00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:19.680 deny him. High praise. from Gauguin. Indeed. 00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:22.859 Then there's Mary Cassatt, the American Impressionist, 00:21:22.900 --> 00:21:26.000 a major force herself. She was absolutely effusive 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:29.059 about him. Described him as a teacher that could 00:21:29.059 --> 00:21:31.140 have taught the stones to draw correctly. Wow. 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:34.180 And even Vincent van Gogh. Though he never formally 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:38.079 studied with Pizarro, they corresponded. Pizarro 00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:40.599 helped explain his ideas about finding and expressing 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:44.220 light and color. Ideas van Gogh clearly absorbed 00:21:44.220 --> 00:21:47.420 and used in his own revolutionary way. Then in 00:21:47.420 --> 00:21:50.000 his later years, Pizarro faced another challenge, 00:21:50.180 --> 00:21:53.880 a physical one. Yes, sadly. He suffered from 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:56.359 this recurring painful eye infection. It meant 00:21:56.359 --> 00:21:58.680 he couldn't work outdoors much, except in warm 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:00.720 weather. So another forced adaptation. Exactly. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:03.500 Just like the Franco -Prussian War forced a change, 00:22:03.700 --> 00:22:06.740 this disability did too. Confined indoors, he 00:22:06.740 --> 00:22:08.559 couldn't paint the fields and forests anymore, 00:22:08.779 --> 00:22:12.019 so he turned his gaze outward from windows. Painting 00:22:12.019 --> 00:22:15.299 cityscapes. Urban scenes, yes. He started painting 00:22:15.299 --> 00:22:17.759 from hotel rooms, apartments, traveled around 00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:21.420 northern France, Rouen, Paris, Le Havre, Dieppe. 00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:24.440 He often chose upper floors to get these broad, 00:22:24.539 --> 00:22:27.140 sweeping views of the city below. That's how 00:22:27.140 --> 00:22:29.259 we get those famous, really expansive series 00:22:29.259 --> 00:22:31.920 like the Boulevard Montmartre paintings. It's 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:35.099 amazing. His genius just kept finding ways to 00:22:35.099 --> 00:22:38.559 adapt, to find new subjects, new beauty, despite 00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:41.539 huge limitations. It really defines him. Resilience 00:22:41.539 --> 00:22:44.579 and adaptation. Pizarro's personal legacy is 00:22:44.579 --> 00:22:46.819 also quite remarkable, isn't it? Starting with 00:22:46.819 --> 00:22:48.839 his family, he created this artistic dynasty. 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:51.519 He really did. Camille and his wife, Julie Vallée, 00:22:51.619 --> 00:22:54.279 they finally married in 1871. After being together 00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:56.799 for years, they had seven children. And amazingly, 00:22:57.019 --> 00:22:59.180 six of them became dedicated painters themselves. 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:02.039 Six out of seven. Ensuring the Pizarro name would 00:23:02.039 --> 00:23:04.799 keep shaping European art for generations. His 00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:06.940 son Lucien, for instance, followed a path quite 00:23:06.940 --> 00:23:09.599 similar to his father's, working in both Impressionist 00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:11.839 and Neo -Impressionist styles, before mostly 00:23:11.839 --> 00:23:13.839 settling in England. And the legacy continues 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:16.349 even further down the line. Oh, yes. through 00:23:16.349 --> 00:23:19.990 great -grandchildren and beyond. You have Hughes 00:23:19.990 --> 00:23:22.490 Claude Pissarro, who painted President Eisenhower's 00:23:22.490 --> 00:23:25.529 portrait, and his great -grandson, Joachim Pissarro, 00:23:25.650 --> 00:23:27.390 who we mentioned earlier, became a head curator 00:23:27.390 --> 00:23:30.009 at MoMA. So the family's impact isn't just in 00:23:30.009 --> 00:23:32.210 making art, but also in shaping how we understand 00:23:32.210 --> 00:23:35.289 modern art. But there's another side to his modern 00:23:35.289 --> 00:23:38.029 legacy, something much more sobering and really 00:23:38.029 --> 00:23:50.539 vital to understanding his place today. Yes, 00:23:51.259 --> 00:23:54.059 this is... This is a critical and unavoidable 00:23:54.059 --> 00:23:56.119 part of his story now. Starting in the early 00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:59.180 1930s, Jewish art owners across Europe were systematically 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:01.819 targeted. They were often forced to sell masterpieces 00:24:01.819 --> 00:24:03.619 for almost nothing because of anti -Jewish laws, 00:24:03.819 --> 00:24:06.880 or worse, had them violently seized by Nazi looting 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:09.559 organizations like the ERR. And Pizarro's works 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:11.980 being valuable impressionist pieces. They were 00:24:11.980 --> 00:24:15.680 prime targets. Highly valuable, highly collectible. 00:24:16.220 --> 00:24:18.460 As a result, several of his most important paintings 00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:22.019 are now or have been the subject of these incredibly 00:24:22.019 --> 00:24:25.200 complex, often heartbreaking international legal 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:27.500 battles. We need to look at some of these cases 00:24:27.500 --> 00:24:30.059 impartially, of course, because they really highlight 00:24:30.059 --> 00:24:34.059 the human cost embedded in these beautiful objects. 00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:36.259 Let's start with Shepard as bringing home the 00:24:36.259 --> 00:24:39.609 sheep. Right. A long running case. This painting 00:24:39.609 --> 00:24:42.190 was brutally looted from its Jewish owners, Yvonne 00:24:42.190 --> 00:24:45.430 and Roll Meyer, in occupied France in 1941. And 00:24:45.430 --> 00:24:47.630 the legal battle involved a major U .S. university. 00:24:47.970 --> 00:24:50.410 Yes, the University of Oklahoma. The fight was 00:24:50.410 --> 00:24:53.349 protracted, highly publicized. The eventual outcome 00:24:53.349 --> 00:24:56.369 was this very controversial split custody agreement. 00:24:56.670 --> 00:24:58.809 The painting basically has to shuttle back and 00:24:58.809 --> 00:25:01.529 forth between the Musée d 'Orsay in Paris and 00:25:01.529 --> 00:25:03.750 the museum in Oklahoma every three years. Which 00:25:03.750 --> 00:25:05.980 doesn't sound like true restitution. Well, the 00:25:05.980 --> 00:25:08.579 survivor, Leonie Noel -Meyer, certainly didn't 00:25:08.579 --> 00:25:10.960 think so. She spent decades fighting for it. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.519 She challenged that split accord, arguing it 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:16.119 wasn't real ownership. But sadly, the sources 00:25:16.119 --> 00:25:18.779 say she was ultimately forced to abandon her 00:25:18.779 --> 00:25:20.980 legal fight to get full ownership back because 00:25:20.980 --> 00:25:22.960 the courts threatened her with heavy financial 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:26.059 penalties if she continued the litigation. Just 00:25:26.059 --> 00:25:28.160 tragic. What's another example? Picking peas, 00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:31.460 or la cuillette. This piece was looted from a 00:25:31.460 --> 00:25:35.359 Jewish businessman, Simon Bauer, in 1943. Vichy 00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:38.480 regime in France, along with 92 other artworks 00:25:38.480 --> 00:25:41.119 from his collection. Bauer died before he could 00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:43.259 recover them, and his family has been searching 00:25:43.259 --> 00:25:45.240 for the collection, including the Pizarro, for 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:47.880 decades as a matter of moral imperative. And 00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:50.539 Sauer and Plowman. Another deeply tragic case, 00:25:50.700 --> 00:25:54.000 owned by Dr. Henry Hinrichsen, a prominent Jewish 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:56.759 music publisher in Germany. He was forced to 00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:59.359 give up the painting in 1940 under extreme duress. 00:25:59.380 --> 00:26:01.880 He was later deported and murdered in Auschwitz 00:26:01.880 --> 00:26:04.460 in 1942. As you said, these aren't just paintings. 00:26:04.579 --> 00:26:07.880 They're witnesses to history. To genocide. Precisely. 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:10.799 And perhaps the most high profile example, certainly 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.180 in terms of market value, is Le Boulevard de 00:26:14.180 --> 00:26:16.779 Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps. The one from 00:26:16.779 --> 00:26:20.079 the later Cityscape series. Yes. It was owned 00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:23.680 by Max Silberberg, a major German Jewish industrialist 00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:26.339 and renowned collector. His entire collection 00:26:26.339 --> 00:26:29.099 was seized, sold off in a forced auction. He 00:26:29.099 --> 00:26:31.200 and his wife were also murdered at Auschwitz. 00:26:31.759 --> 00:26:35.160 So after the war, where did these looted masterpieces 00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:38.650 end up? all over the world. In museums, major 00:26:38.650 --> 00:26:41.170 private collections, often their troubled past 00:26:41.170 --> 00:26:43.829 was deliberately hidden with false provenances, 00:26:43.849 --> 00:26:46.730 fake ownership histories. Or sometimes institutions 00:26:46.730 --> 00:26:49.390 acquired them decades later in good faith, unaware 00:26:49.390 --> 00:26:52.130 of the looting, which creates complex legal defenses 00:26:52.130 --> 00:26:54.549 today. And the legal battles to get them back 00:26:54.549 --> 00:26:56.809 are still ongoing. Absolutely. It often pits 00:26:56.809 --> 00:26:58.490 the moral rights of the heirs of the original 00:26:58.490 --> 00:27:01.069 owners against the legal claims of current holders 00:27:01.069 --> 00:27:03.170 who might have bought the art legally many years 00:27:03.170 --> 00:27:05.230 later. It's incredibly difficult. You mentioned 00:27:05.230 --> 00:27:07.789 the Roussin -Honoré case. Yes, that involved 00:27:07.789 --> 00:27:10.349 a Pizarro found in the Museo Thessin Bornemisa 00:27:10.349 --> 00:27:13.509 in Madrid. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles, 00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:15.910 but the U .S. court eventually ruled in favor 00:27:15.910 --> 00:27:18.930 of the museum foundation based on Spanish property 00:27:18.930 --> 00:27:22.009 law. It highlights just how hard legal recovery 00:27:22.009 --> 00:27:24.430 can be across different jurisdictions. And sometimes 00:27:24.430 --> 00:27:26.789 even when restitution happens, it's complicated. 00:27:27.150 --> 00:27:31.380 It can be. In 2021, Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie 00:27:31.380 --> 00:27:34.039 returned a square in La Roche -Guillonne to the 00:27:34.039 --> 00:27:37.119 heirs of Armand Dourville, a French -Jewish collector 00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:40.000 persecuted by the Nazis. A victory for the heirs. 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:42.400 But then the museum immediately bought the painting 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:44.740 back from them. So it stayed in the museum. It 00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:46.859 stayed in the public collection, which shows 00:27:46.859 --> 00:27:49.720 this modern tension, balancing the moral duty 00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:52.039 to return stolen property with the desire of 00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:54.859 nations and museums to keep important artworks 00:27:54.859 --> 00:27:57.680 accessible to the public. It's a constant negotiation. 00:27:58.079 --> 00:28:00.680 What's truly staggering though is the contrast 00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:03.490 between Pissarro's own life. and the value of 00:28:03.490 --> 00:28:05.769 his work now. Oh, it's night and day. During 00:28:05.769 --> 00:28:08.430 his lifetime, he sold very few paintings. He 00:28:08.430 --> 00:28:10.970 really struggled financially well into his 60s. 00:28:10.990 --> 00:28:13.329 His anarchist politics probably didn't help him 00:28:13.329 --> 00:28:15.890 with wealthy buyers either. Yet today. Today, 00:28:15.950 --> 00:28:18.329 his commitment to truth, light, and technique 00:28:18.329 --> 00:28:21.410 commands astronomical sums. He's firmly in the 00:28:21.410 --> 00:28:24.910 top tier of Impressionist masters. In 2007, his 00:28:24.910 --> 00:28:27.869 Les Croissants, the Four Seasons, sold for $14 00:28:27.869 --> 00:28:31.930 .6 million. And that looted painting, the... 00:28:32.009 --> 00:28:34.710 Boulevard Montmartre. In 2014, the Boulevard 00:28:34.710 --> 00:28:36.730 Montmartre met Neda Plantin, the one seized from 00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:39.670 Max Silberberg, set a huge auction record for 00:28:39.670 --> 00:28:42.990 Pissarro. It sold for nearly 20 million pounds. 00:28:44.009 --> 00:28:46.269 The market now places immense value on the very 00:28:46.269 --> 00:28:49.670 things the salon once dismissed as vulgar. Hashtag 00:28:49.670 --> 00:28:52.230 tag outro. So if we step back and think about 00:28:52.230 --> 00:28:55.210 Camille Passaro's life and work, what do we see? 00:28:55.309 --> 00:28:57.869 I think we see this indispensable unifying figure, 00:28:58.049 --> 00:29:01.150 the pivotal anchor who really held the Impressionists 00:29:01.150 --> 00:29:04.029 together through thick and thin. He was uniquely 00:29:04.029 --> 00:29:06.750 that essential bridge, not just within Impressionism, 00:29:06.769 --> 00:29:09.950 but into neo -Impressionism and just a tireless 00:29:09.950 --> 00:29:12.289 experimentalist who always, always valued representing 00:29:12.289 --> 00:29:14.789 authentic truth over getting academic approval 00:29:14.789 --> 00:29:17.480 or achieving commercial success. And his background, 00:29:17.720 --> 00:29:20.420 those profoundly unconventional origins coming 00:29:20.420 --> 00:29:22.720 from the Caribbean diaspora, navigating religious 00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:26.359 exclusion, later embracing anarchism, it all 00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:28.400 seems to have informed his artistic viewpoint, 00:29:28.519 --> 00:29:31.039 didn't it? Absolutely. It fueled his commitment 00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:33.420 to documenting the unvarnished reality of the 00:29:33.420 --> 00:29:36.359 common person. He painted revolution and stability, 00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:38.920 often in the same brushstroke, throughout his 00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:42.380 life, and often at immense personal cost, culminating 00:29:42.380 --> 00:29:45.619 in that horrific loss of 1 ,500 paintings. He 00:29:45.619 --> 00:29:48.609 was a man of Well, immense personal and artistic 00:29:48.609 --> 00:29:51.210 integrity. Yet he died having sold very little, 00:29:51.289 --> 00:29:53.730 struggled financially. And today his paintings 00:29:53.730 --> 00:29:56.289 are rightly seen as world masterpieces. They 00:29:56.289 --> 00:29:58.809 command these record -breaking prices, but so 00:29:58.809 --> 00:30:01.369 many of them now carry this indelible, painful 00:30:01.369 --> 00:30:04.369 history of Nazi theft. A history of profound 00:30:04.369 --> 00:30:07.230 moral injury that once you know it, you can't 00:30:07.230 --> 00:30:10.309 unsee it. Which leaves us, and you, with a necessary, 00:30:10.490 --> 00:30:12.990 maybe uncomfortable thought to consider. How 00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:15.069 does our modern appreciation, our soaring financial 00:30:15.069 --> 00:30:17.230 valuation of an artist's technical genius and 00:30:17.230 --> 00:30:19.369 beauty, how does that balance against the immense 00:30:19.369 --> 00:30:21.910 moral weight of a painting's provenance? The 00:30:21.910 --> 00:30:24.369 human cost that's embedded deep within its history. 00:30:24.730 --> 00:30:26.869 The Sorrows work, perhaps more than any other 00:30:26.869 --> 00:30:29.730 Impressionist master's, really forces us to confront 00:30:29.730 --> 00:30:32.089 that difficult intersection. The fact that profound 00:30:32.089 --> 00:30:34.670 beauty and deep tragedy are often inextricably, 00:30:34.670 --> 00:30:36.549 painfully linked in the story of art.