''The Grands Boulevards'' is an
oil on canvas
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest o ...
painting, which was painted by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1875. The painting illustrates a busy Paris
boulevard
A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway.
Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls.
In American usage, boulevards may ...
showing the effects of
industrialisation and
Haussmannisation. The image is housed at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is considered to be Renoir's most famous view of Paris.
Background
Many of the great
Impressionists
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
were inspired by the vibrant, urban scenes of Paris. In the 1850s and 1860s, Paris was transformed into a modern metropolis by the urban planner,
Georges-Eugène Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann (; 27 March 180911 January 1891), was a French official who served as prefect of Seine (1853–1870), chosen by Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive urban renewal programme of n ...
. His massive urban renewal of the city resulted in a new layout dominated by wide boulevards, lined with uniform stone buildings, and open park spaces, which is still evident today. Renoir's painting ''The Grands Boulevards'' depicts one of the city's newest and most fashionable districts, where middle-class Parisian society would stroll at leisure.
Renoir moved to Paris at the age of four, when his family moved there from the town of Limoges. He spent a large part of his life living there and loved the city dearly, stating, "In the streets of Paris I felt at home."
Description
Renoir’s ''The Grands Boulevards'' illustrates Haussman's renovation of Paris by depicting the wide, paved street and the large concrete building to the right of the painting. The boulevard is teeming with life; not only does the painting illustrate all classes, but it emphasises the
flâneur
() is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer", but with some nuanced additional meanings (including as a loanword into English). is the act of strolling, with all of its accom ...
s. Renoir’s emphasis moves away from the
human figure and towards the lighting's effect on the image. The painting shows the clothes worn by the people on the boulevard in detail, from which their
social class can be inferred, but their
individuality
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
is hidden because Renoir chooses not to show any details of their faces. Instead, his focus is on the effect of sunshine on the buildings and trees. The painting shows great detail in the shadows created by the sun shining on the trees, the shadows created by the people, and the shadow of the horse-drawn carriage. Throughout the painting it is evident that Renoir was influenced by
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
. The characteristics of Impressionism that can be seen in Renoir’s work are short brush strokes and a seemingly out of focus view.
[House, John. Impressionism: Paint And Politics / John House. n.p.: New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, c2004., 2004. Millsaps Library Catalog. Web. 16 Nov. 2014]
References
External links
''The Grands Boulevards''at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grands Boulevards, The
Paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
1875 paintings
Horses in art