Upstream from Giverny: Camille Pissarro in Eragny-sur-Epte

Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis. Don’t be afraid of putting on colour. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression. Camille Pissarro.

Giverny is rightfully a site of pilgrimage for fans of Claude Monet and Impressionism, but also for people who appreciate a wonderful garden. Monet’s garden and the famous water lily ponds he created on the River Epte in Giverny is the second most visited tourist attraction in Normandy. But few of these thousands of tourists know that not that far up-stream of Giverny is the town of Eragny-sur-Epte, where Camille Pissarro lived from 1884.

Camille Pissarro was not only one of the first group of French Impressionist painters, exhibiting his paintings in the Paris Impressionist exhibitions in the early 1880s, he also greatly influenced the likes of Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin.

Besides painting in Paris and various locations in Normandy (including Dieppe, Rouen and Le Havre), Pissarro spent a great deal of time in London, spread out over a number of visits from 1870 to 1897. A ‘Blue Plaque’ adorns the house at 77a Westow Hill in Upper Norwood where lived from 1870 to 1871. Pissarro moved to Eragny in 1884, and with the help of a loan from Claude Monet he was able to buy his house in 1892. While in Eragny-sur-Epte he painted some very well known rural scenes, such as hay making and apple picking. Pissarro died on 13 November 1903 in Eragny, but he is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

Eragny-sur-Epte is a small town a few kilometres to the north of Gisors. Being to the right of the River Epte, the town is in fact in the Oise Department of Picardy. But no more than 30 minutes from Giverny. The main road through the town has been renamed Rue Camille Pissarro, and the local primary school is also named after the artist. On 1 July 1998 Pissarro’s house, 29 rue Camille Pissarro, was declared a Historical Monument. Besides the artists and his family living there, many of the great Impressionist artists also visited him there, including Cézanne, Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Mirbeau.

Currently on show in Rouen is a great exhibition with a number of paintings of the city by Camille Pissarro: A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro and Gauguin in Rouen.