Camille Pissarro Evening Bather ca. 1895 lithograph British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Bathers on the lake shore 1895 lithograph on grey chine collé British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Bather seen from the back 1895 etching British Museum |
"According to a principle discovered
by early man, one can't, until a mortal
is dead, evaluate his life in terms
of failure or success. I, however,
present a different case. I know, with certainty,
even before it comes to rest below,
my life's direction: it's hazard's target, never
exempt from ill. For even when I was just
an adolescent, living in Pleuron, under
King Oineus' roof, I had a profound aversion
to marital relations, the worst occurrence
that ever befell an Aitolian girl. And not without
sufficient reason: the suitor who courted me
was a river – the Achelous. He came, not once,
but often, urging upon my father his proposal
to make me his. The river's manifestations
were three: first, to the naked eye he'd show
the fearsome form of a bull; next time he'd be
a snake, with scales and stifling coils; and then
a manly frame, except for these details:
upon his brow, an ox's butting horn,
below his chin, a tangled growth of beard
that sprinkled jets of water like a spring.
Looking ahead to what I had in store
was torture; I prayed, again and again,
to stop my life, cut it short before
I could ever give myself to such a mate."
– speech of the character Dejaneira from the Trachinian Women of Sophocles (496-406 BC), translated by Bruce Heiden
Camille Pissarro Bather near a wood 1896 lithograph on green chine collé British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Bather near a wood 1896 lithograph British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Two bathers 1891 drypoint, aquatint British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Children talking 1889 drypoint British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Portrait of unknown man in cap ca. 1887-1903 drawing British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Life study of woman from the back ca. 1881 drawing British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Market at Pontoise 1895 lithograph British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Peasant woman beneath a tree watching cows ca. 1884 drawing, watercolor British Museum |
Camille Pissarro The Plow 1901 lithograph (for book illustration) British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Three studies of a woman dressing ca. 1895-1900 pastel on pink paper British Museum |
Camille Pissarro Convalescence (Lucien Pissarro asleep) 1900 lithograph on chine collé British Museum |