Camille Pissarro was a major contributor to the Impressionist movement. Though his name may not be the most well-known, he was the guy who kept trying to get the band back together.

Boulevard Montmartre: Mardi Gras was painted near the end of Pissarro’s life, after he learned how to develop the pinnacle of Impressionism he had been searching for in his work. But getting to that point took no small amount of time and effort. 

In the 1860s, working with Claude Monet and other Impressionist artists, Pissarro organized a cooperative to put together public exhibitions for their art. At the time, the Salon was the only exhibition space for unknown artists to get exposure, but the group had submitted to the Salon and mostly been rejected. Pissarro and Paul Cézanne were the only two to have their paintings featured...in a separate exhibit hall called Salon des Refusés featuring artworks that had been "refused." Yep, it's about as complimentary as it sounds. The exhibit got a pretty hostile response, with visitors coming in droves to laugh at the rejected artworks. Of course, the exhibit has since become infamous for featuring groundbreaking modern works by art history superstars. 

Pissarro worked hard to put Impressionist exhibitions together outside of the Salon, but critics didn’t mirror his enthusiasm. For decades, the typical response to his work was essentially: stop trying to make Impressionism happen, it’s not going to happen! The critics never succeeded in dampening his spirits though, and he kept at it. Ultimately, Pissaro was the only artist featured at all eight of his exhibitions. At least towards the end, newly established galleries were becoming more accepting of avant-garde art. 

In the 1890s, when Pissaro was in his sixties, he finally achieved a freedom in his style that encapsulated what Impressionism was all about: capturing the moment and evoking the feeling of a scene without having to recreate it in precise detail. Ironically, some critics believe this evolution towards abstraction was due to his failing eyesight, which makes sense; it's not hard to look at this painting and imagine that the image would become crisp once you put on your glasses. 

To make this series, Pissarro found a room in the Grand Hôtel de la Russie with a view of the Boulevard Montmartre that really excited him. He painted a series of sixteen paintings of the Boulevard Montmartre at different times of day, in different seasons, and with varying crowds of people. This piece is one of three he did during a Mardi Gras parade.