Beginnings
Claude Monet
Boulevard des Capucines
1873–74
Oil on canvas, 80.3 × 60.3 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
A cold day on one of the new Paris boulevards, seen from high above. Monet painted it from the rooms that housed the 1874 exhibition.
- The crowd below is a scatter of dry, brushy dabs, not individual people. The Impressionists painted city crowds as the eye takes them in, as moving marks.
- Monet worked from a balcony of Nadar's former studio, in late 1873 or early 1874.
- The museum identifies a horizontal view from the same spot, now in Moscow, as the one exhibited.
- Look for the pink balloons at lower right and two men in top hats watching from a balcony.
- Very likely sold by Monet in 1875, it was bought by the Nelson-Atkins in 1972.
Baron Haussmann redesigned the boulevard under Napoleon III, lining it with new hotels and cafés. Monet's high, tilted view echoes Nadar's balloon photographs of Paris.
Themes
Image: Google Art Project · Public domain