From a family of artists, Camille Pissarro, painter and printmaker, was considered the father of the Impressionist Movement. He was the only painter to exhibit in all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions held between 1874 and 1886, including the first which was held at the studio of the photographer, Paul Nadar. He developed friend relationships through regular debate meetings at the Cafe Guerbois with Edgar Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Edouard Manet, and his closest friend, Paul Cezanne.

He was by no means narrow in outlook, however, and throughout his life remained as radical in artistic matters as he was in politics. In 1948 the critic Thadée Natanson wrote about Pissarro, "There was nothing of novelty or of excellence appeared that Pissarro had not been among the first, if not the very first, to discern and to defend". The significance of Pissarro’s work is in the balance he managed to maintain between tradition and the avant-garde.

His techniques varied greatly from those of his peers. Pissarro had a solid handling of his paint, especially in his plein-air landscapes. His diagonal lines reinforced with flattened stripes and a ground level horizontal plane gave his paintings a balance and yet, a contrast at the same time.

In his later style, Pissarro used an unusual weave of canvas, a herringbone type twill which runs horizontal. His paint is thick and buttery. He applies it in separate touches or strokes with a loaded bristle brush, building up layers, wet over dry with some mixing of color wet into wet. His palette is composed of predominately subdued earth colors and dark greens, with accents of bright hues used to pick out reflected light. All of his colors are mixed with varying amounts of white.

Pissarro was revolutionary in renewing the art of painting in the working sense and at the same time he remained a classical artist respectful of worthwhile traditions. Despite his large-scale well thought out compositions he entered into the Salon shows, he prophetically combines striking elements of traditional artists with those of the Impressionists with whom he will always be associated with.