Painted in nature, Camille Pissarro's landscapes and portraits depict the French countryside and cityscapes across vivid scenes that replicate the sensations of light and changes in temperature as experienced by the painter.
Read MorePissarro's time spent in rural regions like Montmorency and Pontoise, where nature was ample, inspired subject matter like the green countryside of Jalais Hill, Pontoise (1867) and established a lifelong habit of painting outside of Paris.
Deemed by French writer and cultural critic Émile Zola as an exemplary modern landscape, the work was received favourably by the Salon and positioned Pissarro as an avantgarde landscape painter, despite his growing reluctance to exhibit with the institution.
Pissarro became increasingly vocal about the inequities of the École des Beaux-Arts and the Salon's jury system, which disadvantaged smaller paintings. These ideas were shared with younger artists like Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir, who referred to him as 'Father Pissarro'.
When the Franco-German War broke out in 1870, Pissarro joined his mother and brother in London, where he worked alongside Monet, painting scenes like The Crystal Palace (1871), which captured the emerging middle-class homes in the neighbouring town of Sydenham.
