Tip: move over the painting to use the lens.

Woman and Child at the Well

Artist: Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)
Date: 1882
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 81.5 × 66.4 cm (32 1/8 × 26 1/8 in.); Framed: 98.5 × 81.6 × 6.1 cm (38 3/4 × 32 1/8 × 2 3/8 in.)
Made in: France
Style: Post-Impressionism
Where to see it: Art Institute of Chicago

Potter Palmer Collection · CC0 Public Domain · Art Institute of Chicago · image via Wikimedia Commons · see it at the museum ↗

Notes from the museum

By the 1880s, Camille Pissarro, like most of his Impressionist colleagues, sought an alternative to the style he had employed over the previous decade, deciding to focus on figures rather than landscapes. Of the 36 paintings he showed at the seventh Impressionist exhibition, in the spring of 1882, 27 were figural. Woman and Child at the Well is one of a series of works depicting peasant girls taking a break from their chores, their poses and gestures suggesting narratives that remain ambiguous. As the model for the boy in this composition, Pissarro used his fourth son, Ludovic-Rodolphe, who was four years old at the time.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Camille Pissarro

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas. His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.

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