Impressionists’ Views of the Modern Paris of Haussmann: Paintings
Probably the best way to illustrate the intimate interrelationships
between modernity, Impressionism, and the Paris of Haussmann is to study the impressions
of the major
Impressionist artists in their canvases depicting scenes of the capital, its
streets and boulevards, and its people during the last quarter of the 19th
century. Haussmann had truly
transformed the city, but the Impressionists transformed the Paris he’d created
yet again, bringing the same modernity to art that he had sought to achieve
with civic planning. Better than
photographs, these paintings relay to us, two centuries later, the forces that
helped bring Paris into the 20th century and beyond.
Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines
Claude Monet, the leading figure among the Impressionists, captured
scenes of middle-class life and the ever-changing qualities of sunlight in
nature. His work is characterized
by his technique of applying bright, unmixed colors in quick short strokes, the
hallmark of the Impressionist style.
Monet, like many of his contemporaries, enjoyed the New Paris of Georges
Haussmann, but used his art, much like Renoir did, to add color and light and
perspective to hide the banality of the civic planner’s buildings and soften
his authoritarian vistas. Monet
painted “The Boulevard des Capucines” from a studio on the second floor of a
building at the corner of the Boulevard and the rue Danou, accounting for the
overhead view. It is a winter
scene, with snow on the ground and the colors relatively dark and muted
compared to the typical Impressionist landscape. Monet’s use of his
characteristic “tongue-lickings” to represent the many people that dominate the
painting renders them indistinguishable. This, along with the cold grays,
blacks and whites of the painting demonstrate its function as a commentary on
the anonymity and impersonality of the boulevards, and, more generally, of the
industrialized life of modern Paris.
Auguste Renoir, Les Grands Boulevards
The work of Auguste Renoir is characterized by its brilliance of color, harmony of lines, and the intimate charm of his subjects. Renoir abandoned the Impressionists later in his career, refusing to subordinate composition and plasticity of form to rendering the effects of light. “The Grands Boulevards” pictures a Haussmannian building, much like the Grand Hotel, but its stark gray outlines are softened, with the roofline partly obscured by the sky and partly assimilated by the trees. Splashes of intense color draw the eye away from the buildings and to the street and the flaneurs, women, and children strolling down the broad boulevard. Together with the strong play of light and shadow from the mid-day sun and the foliage, Renoir’s figures tend to overwhelm the stark lines of Haussmann’s construction. This is an example of how Renoir, who was upset by the loss of the historic buildings of old Paris (as a result of Haussmannization) and their replacement with architecture that he found to be cold and artless in its banal uniformity, took the initiative as an artist to redesign the modern Paris to his liking. He tried to compensate for the monotony of modern architecture through his use of the “picturesque” especially in his use of strong color and rippled brushwork, which give his paintings a sense of immediacy, another important characteristic of impressionist art.
Edgar Degas, Place de la Concorde
Edgar Degas exhibited in seven of the eight Impressionists shows. While he is considered to be one of the
group, he stands apart from other members in a number of ways, several of which
are demonstrated in his painting, “Place de la Concorde”. His work is characterized by its
innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive analysis of movement. Degas was classically trained in
drafting. This, coupled with his
general distaste for painting directly from nature, distinguish him from the
other Impressionists. His figures
and faces are generally more meticulously drawn than those of other
Impressionists. He preferred
capturing his subjects accurately and was usually more interested achieving
this than in dwelling on the interplay between light and colors. In this
painting, Degas depicts a typical flaneur with his two children. What is interesting about
this painting is that it is done from the viewpoint of a flaneur, capturing the fleeting feeling of
wandering on the boulevards. Degas was a keen observer of humanity, and
represented the darker side of the joy and prosperity of modern Parisian life:
its tensions and anxieties. This painting is no exception. The indifference of
the man in the painting reflects the coldness and anonymity he felt walking on
the boulevards, surrounded by so many people, yet so alone. This painting also
demonstrates the honesty of feeling in impressionist paintings. Like his contemporaries, Degas remains
truthful to his impression of coldness and indifference in this painting.
Berthe Morisot, Skating in the Park
Berthe Morisot’s
painting, “Skating in the Park”, illustrates a number of the unique
characteristics of her canvases. She paints with a light touch and there is
generally an intimacy of atmosphere.
Morisot tends to eschew narrative detail. Except in her portraits, the
women who are her preferred subjects often lack facial features as demonstrated
here. Visual details are few, but
those present are strong and laid down with broad brush strokes. The women
pictured are from the affluent middle class to which Morisot belonged and their
prominence in her paintings is a reflection of the increasing role that women
(of the middle-upper classes) had begun to play outside the home in the modern
Paris post-Haussmann (Lower-middle class women were not able to enjoy the same
leisure, and had to work, like the woman in Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere).
These Impressionist renderings of Parisian scenes bring to life the dramatic changes in the landscape of the French capital that occurred through the efforts of Baron Haussmann.
These changes were essential to bringing modernity to Paris. The Impressionists translated this modernity of the city into a modernity of French art, in so doing producing a new art form that established Paris as the artistic capital of the world in the late 19th century.
Impressionism
and the Modernity of Paris
The Impressionists
Georges
Haussmann, Impressionism, and the Haussmannization of Paris
Definition of Terms