Boulevard Des Capucines (Monet)
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''Boulevard des Capucines'' is the title of two oil-on-canvas paintings depicting the famous Paris boulevard by French
Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
artist
Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
, created between 1873–1874. One version is vertical in format and depicts a snowy street scene looking down the boulevard towards the
Place de l'Opéra The Place de l'Opéra () is a square in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, 9th arrondissement of Paris, at the junction of the Boulevard des Italiens, Boulevard des Capucines, Avenue de l'Opéra, , , Rue de la Paix and . It was built at the same tim ...
. The other version is a horizontal composition and shows the same street on a sunny winter day; it is housed at
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...
in Moscow and is believed to be the version that was exhibited at the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874. Monet painted the works from the photography studio of
Félix Nadar Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (; 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar () or Félix Nadar'','' was a French people, French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloon (aircraft), balloonist, and proponent of Hi ...
at 35 Boulevard des Capucines. The elevated vantage point and loose brushstrokes allow the audience to see the commotion of the boulevard from a position high above street level. Certain aspects of the paintings have parallels in the photography of Monet's day and in Japanese prints, which may have influenced Monet.


Background

The effects of industrialization and modernity on the landscape were a frequent preoccupation of the Impressionists. The streets of Paris surrounding the Opera house were reconstructed during the Second Empire by George-Eugène Haussmann. Monet painted the scenes of this "new" Paris, including the famous Boulevard des Capucines, from 1867 to 1878. The first Impressionist exhibit, arranged by the "Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc.," was held at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in the studio of prominent photographer Félix Nadar from April 15 to May 15, 1874, the same location where Monet painted ''Boulevard des Capucines''. In addition to Monet, works by Cézanne,
Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French people, French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Print ...
, Morisot,
Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( ; ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...
,
Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; ; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that ...
, and
Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedica ...
were displayed. The movement's name grew out of this exhibit, which was harshly critiqued by
Louis Leroy Louis Leroy (; 1812 - 1885) was a French 19th-century printmaker, painter, and playwright. Biography He is remembered as the journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper '' Le Charivari'', who coined the term "impressionists" ...
. Mocking Monet’s ''
Impression, Sunrise ''Impression, Sunrise'' () is an 1872 painting by Claude Monet first shown at what would become known as the " Exhibition of the Impressionists" in Paris in April, 1874. The painting is credited with inspiring the name of the Impressionist movem ...
'', Leroy used the word "impression" to describe these artists' work, a name that stuck with them moving forward.
Jules-Antoine Castagnary Jules-Antoine Castagnary (11 April 1830 – 11 May 1888) was a French liberal politician, journalist and progressive and influential art critic, who embraced the new term " Impressionist" in his positive and perceptive review of the first Impressi ...
, another critic of the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874, further elaborated on this line of thinking, writing "they are impressionist in the sense that they render not the landscape but the sensation produced by the landscape."


Description


Pushkin Museum version

The horizontal version of the painting is in The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, and it captures a sunny mid-afternoon in winter during which the buildings cast a shadow on the foreground of the painting. Different times of day, lighting, weather conditions, and orientation of the canvas were all aspects that Monet experimented with in his paintings and the two versions of ''Boulevard des Capucines'' are consistent with this exploration. The horizontal version of the painting is often believed by scholars to be the version that was shown at the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874. The critical response to ''Boulevard des Capucines'' at the exhibit was mixed. Louis Leroy was extremely critical of the blurred pedestrians, labeling them as “black-tongue lickings” in "L’Exposition des impressionnistes" in ''
Le Charivari ''Le Charivari'' was an illustrated magazine published in Paris, France, from 1832 to 1937. It published caricatures, political cartoons and reviews. After 1835, when the government banned political caricature, ''Le Charivari'' began publishing ...
,'' April 25, 1874. However, Ernest Chesneau responded positively in ''Paris-Journal'', May 7, 1874, noting the "extraordinary animation of the public street" that Monet captured in the painting. The art historian Joel Isaacson has questioned whether the vertical version of ''Boulevard des Capucines'' would have elicited the same level of feeling from critics if it were displayed at the first Impressionist exhibit since the vertical scene is more muted in color and presentation.


Nelson-Atkins Museum version

The snowy vertical scene ''Boulevard des Capucines'' is housed at The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. The painting depicts a snowy winter scene on the Boulevard des Capucines facing the Place de l'Opera. Along the left side of the painting, receding into the background, are the multistory buildings that were redone as a part of Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris, including the distinguished Grand Hôtel. The boulevard is crowded with people strolling, horse-drawn carriages, vendors, and shoppers. The prominent yellow and brown object in the foreground along the tree line is known as a Morris advertising column, and a large cluster of reddish-pink balloons occupies the right foreground. On the right edge of the painting, there are figures wearing top-hats standing on the neighboring balcony and gazing down on the activity of the street below. The pattern of the people on the street implies a slow unhurried walk down the sidewalk, which suggests that Monet has captured the moment when a street performance has just finished and the pedestrians are breaking off in small groups.


Analysis

Monet’s use of high vantage point perspective and loose brushstrokes were representative of a style he began using in the late 1860s. High vantage points generally decrease the amount of sky available in the painting by forcing the horizon line upwards. Additionally, the elevated vantage point minimizes the background-to-foreground tonal contrast and color saturation, while also making the viewer feel that the scene is tilted towards them. The audience is able view the commotion of the boulevard from an elevated distance, which allows them to study the scene but remain withdrawn from the action. The movement of the busy scene on the boulevard, the pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages, is implied by the blurry figures that Monet painted with loose black brushstrokes intended to be suggestive of the black coats that the French
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
wore, their ''habits noirs''. These abrupt and short brushstrokes form the pedestrians in splotches of uniform color and create the image of a crowded sidewalk without explicit structured silhouettes. In its lighting, the painting uses a technique that Monet would later refer to as "the envelopment, the same light spread over everywhere." From the beginning of the 1870s, Monet experimented with the texture of his canvas and the effect it had on the painting, favoring a thin layer of "à grain priming" on fine weave twill canvases. The diagonal weave of the canvas in the Nelson-Atkins version of ''Boulevard des Capucines'' can be seen prominently in the way that Monet applied color over the single primed surface. The paint catches the raised part of the weave of the canvas leaving the depressed primed section untouched. This creates a distinction between the light and dark portions of the canvas that "gives shimmering effects that evoke both the wintery atmosphere and the sensation of distance" between the viewer and the blurred pedestrians below.


Influences

Contemporary photographic techniques and limitations may have influenced Monet’s painting. Due to the slow shutter speeds of early cameras, moving objects were often blurry in photographs. The blurred pedestrians in the painting are reminiscent of how a camera from the period would capture individuals walking at a normal speed.
Adolphe Braun Jean Adolphe Braun (13 June 1812 – 31 December 1877)John Hannavy, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography', Vol. 1 (Routledge, 2007), pp. 204–205. was a French photographer, best known for his floral still lifes, Parisian street scenes ...
, a prominent photographer of the time, may also have been an influence on Monet. Braun's photographs from a high vantage point, capturing blurred figures beneath a high horizon, are similar to Monet’s view of ''Boulevard des Capucines'' from the elevated second story of Nadar’s studio. Monet’s blurred pedestrians walking on the boulevard evoke the people crossing
Pont des Arts Pont, meaning "bridge" in French, may refer to: Places France * Pont, Côte-d'Or, in the Côte-d'Or ''département'' * Pont-Bellanger, in the Calvados ''département'' * Pont-d'Ouilly, in the Calvados ''département'' * Pont-Farcy, in the Ca ...
in Braun's photograph ''Panorama of Paris'', which was captured from the Quai du Louvre. Impressionist painters were influenced by Japanese prints as well. These prints also shared some of devices of early photography like high horizon lines and "cropped figures and objects."


See also

*
List of paintings by Claude Monet This is a list of works by Claude Monet (1840–1926), including all the extant finished paintings but Water Lilies (Monet series), excluding the ''Water Lilies'', which can be found here, and preparatory black and white sketches.


References


External links


''Impressionism: a centenary exhibition''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this painting (pp. 159–163)
''At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boulevard des Capucines 1873 paintings Paintings by Claude Monet Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Paintings in the Pushkin Museum Oil on canvas paintings Paris in art Snow in art