From Monet to Degas, the radiant beauty of Paris has sparked the creativity of numerous artists. As the city commemorates 150 years of impressionism, its luminosity remains as captivating as ever
Paris earned the moniker “City of Light” perhaps due to its early adoption of gas street lighting. However, this explanation fails to account for the soft, beach-like dazzle I experience as I approach Gare du Nord on the Eurostar during the daytime. This effect is not merely a meteorological phenomenon, as Paris’s weather is only marginally sunnier than London’s. Instead, the city’s luminosity is attributed to the buff or light-grey limestone used in its older buildings (including the Sacré Coeur, looming like a grand specter to my right), a quality further enhanced by the whitewashed facades of newer structures.
The quality of light in Paris was a significant concern for the impressionist artists, whose movement is commemorated by the upcoming “Inventing Impressionism” exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay, marking the 150th anniversary of the movement. On April 15, 1874, a group of 31 artists, including Monet, Pissarro, Degas, and Renoir, described as “hungry for independence” from the constraints of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, organized their own exhibition. “Inventing Impressionism” will showcase works from that exhibition and others of the period, featuring “painted scenes of modern life and landscapes sketched outdoors, in soft hues and with delicate brushstrokes.”
The new artistic movement derived its name from Claude Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise,” which depicts a blurred view of Le Havre in Normandy, his hometown. However, as Stephen Clarke notes in his book “Paris Revealed,” “Paris is the spiritual home of impressionism,” and their artworks are frequently analyzed in connection with Baron Haussmann’s transformation of the city. Haussmann was commissioned by Napoleon III to “aérer, unifier et embellir” (open up, connect, beautify) Paris.
Monet painted the view from his room, capturing a boulevard illuminated and bustling with people
Historian Andrew Hussey, in his book Paris: The Secret History, describes an urban infrastructure in Paris that had seen little improvement since the late medieval period. He notes that there were no straight roads through Paris, with its center, the Île de la Cité, being a dark and muddy maze. Haussmann transformed the city by creating a network of boulevards. These boulevards were characterized by their width, the use of limestone, zinc or slate roofs that gleamed when wet, and the pale trunks of the plane trees.
The Grands Boulevards on the Right Bank held particular significance for the impressionist artists. The 1874 exhibition took place on Boulevard des Capucines, specifically in an upper storey at number 35. Monet captured the view from his rooms there, portraying a boulevard illuminated by light (accentuated by reflections off the snow) and bustling with people. The Grands Boulevards were areas of leisure, frequented by flâneurs, and were lined with restaurants, theaters, and later, cinemas. (The Grand Rex, located on Boulevard Poissonnière, adds to the luminosity of the City of Light with its neon glow.)
Batignolles, a district in the north annexed to Paris on the recommendation of Haussmann, held significance for the impressionist artists. Monet created several studies of the nearby Saint-Lazare station, adhering to Émile Zola’s advice to discover the “poetry” in train stations. In Zola’s novel La Bête Humaine, Saint-Lazare is described as “immense, dreary, drenched with rain, pierced here and there with a blood-red light, vaguely populated by opaque masses.”
It was this sense of obscurity and despair that the painter was aiming to capture. Despite being relatively unknown and financially struggling at the time, he confidently approached the station master, introducing himself as “the painter, Claude Monet.” His request for all the engine drivers to produce as much steam as possible was granted.
Édouard Manet’s painting “The Railway” portrays a young woman and a girl on a bridge overlooking Saint-Lazare. A plume of steam rises behind them, resembling an out-of-place smudge. Watching trains from that bridge remains fascinating (speaking as a railway enthusiast), but they are now electric, and the sky above them appears empty.
Batignolles, often overlooked by tourists, has earned a reputation as Paris’s trendiest neighborhood, yet there’s a certain tranquility to it, a feeling of spacious streets that belong solely to you. This is the ambiance captured in Gustave Caillebotte’s painting “Peintres en bâtiment.” The scene depicts workmen painting a shop front, with the long, deserted street extending into the distance under the characteristic white Parisian sky. Some suggest that the workmen symbolize artists of a more creative nature, grappling with the vastness of the evolving Paris.
Haussmann transformed Île de la Cité into an area characterized by magnificent buildings, each with its own luminous presence
Let’s return to the original heart of darkness: the Île de la Cité. Haussmann transformed it into an area of magnificent buildings, each with its own luminous presence. The gilding on the gates of the Palais de Justice can be dazzling on a sunny day. In the novels of Georges Simenon, Inspector Maigret works at 36 Quai des Orfèvres on the island, a whitish, castle-like building that housed the detectives of the Paris police until their recent relocation. The detective appreciates the changing light over the river, and in “Maigret’s Pickpocket,” he observes “a haze hanging over the Seine, less dense than mist, made up of thousands of tiny, brilliant, living particles peculiar to Paris.”
Not all the brightness is attributed to Haussmann. Walking through the gilded gateway between the Tuileries Garden (captured with ambiguity, in soft green and pinkish tones, by Monet in “Les Tuileries”) and the Place de la Concorde feels like stepping into a pre-Haussmann era. In Henry James’s novel The Tragic Muse, artist Nick Dormer gazes over “the great square, the opposite bank of the Seine, the steep blue roofs of the quay, the bright immensity of Paris.”
Place de la Concorde is currently undergoing embellishment for this summer’s Olympic Games. I recently observed a truck there, loaded with the typically ornate lamp-posts. In any other city, this delivery might have resembled a shipment of theatrical props, but in Paris, it was simply a delivery of streetlights.
These lamp-posts would be too large for the parts of the city that Haussmann did not renovate, such as the Marais or Montmartre. In these areas, lamps are often affixed to the walls of the narrow streets, which many consider to be the most charming in Paris. I particularly adore the quaint bars of Montmartre. The careful illumination of these areas—often with fairy lights around windows or mirrors—may reflect a lesson learned from Haussmann. It could also be argued that without him, we might not have had the impressionist movement.
