Pissarro is not all that well-known compared to other painters of his day. His work is lovely to look at and very Impressionistic. The Avenue de l'Opera is similar to another work by a famous Impressionist painter. What is special about this work is that the artists of the day were sent to the local museum and told to copy the great masters paintings hanging there. Instead they turned their back on the art and looked out the window to paint the street scenes, people having a good time or going about their daily chores. This was the beginning of "genre" painting. It replaced the paintings of the rich with ordinary people at the beer halls, or boating on the river. Look at Monet, Renoir's work for comparison.
