Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

Monet painted a series of twelve pictures of the Gare Saint-Lazare and the Pont de l' Europe intrigued by the power of the engines and the effect of sunlight on smoke and steam. Besides the Gare Saint-Lazare being the largest rail depot in Paris it was the station that served Normandy and the western suburbs of Bougival, Argenteuil and Pontoise which he and the other Impressionists were so fond of painting. Le Havre in Normandy was where Monet lived from early childhood and often returned to throughout his life. To reach his last home at Giverny, you still take the train from Gare Saint-Lazare.

Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Oil on canvas
Musee Marmottan

The Pont de l'Europe, over the tracks of Gare St. Lazare, was one of the great, engineering feats of Haussmann's new Paris, and Monet came to an "accommodation" with the Station Master so that he could sit right by the tracks with his easel. Monet even arranged to have the trains stopped and engines filled with coal. Edouard Manet, (1832 - 1883) also painted Gare Staint-Lazare in 1873 but from a more human reference with a woman and child in the picture with a background of steam from the trains. 'Gare Saint-Lazare' or 'The Railway' as it is sometimes titled, is not in Paris but at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Caillebotte also painted 'The Pont de l'Europe' in 1876 from the vantage point of Place de l'Europe which is at the Petit Palais in Geneva.

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
Oil on canvas
Musee Marmottan

The preparatory study for the painting, 'Paris Street Rainy Day' is still in Paris. The view is at the eight-street intersection, the place de Dublin, showing the new, uniform "Haussmannian" city as seen from rue de Saint-Petersburg northwards. The shop at the triangular junction of rue de Moscou and the rue Clapeyron is still occupied by a pharmacy with a print of "Paris Street, Rainy Day" behind the counter. Gustave Caillebotte was from a wealthy family who lived nearby in the family mansion at 77 rue de Miromesnil at the corner of rue de Lisbone. He was a friend and patron of the Impressionists whom he often supported financially and whose works he was among the first to collect. He was Monet's son Michel's godfather and Renoir painted a lovely portrait of his two grandchildren. The 1896 bequest of Caillebotte's collection of Impressionist paintings to the State, though not all were accepted at the time, is one of the keystones of the Musee d'Orsay's holdings. The final painting of 'Paris Street, Rainy Day' is at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 - 1891)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

Johan Barhold Jongkind was born in Holland but divided his time between The Hague, Paris and Normandy

He is more of a "realist" painter than an ""impressionist"" and did not do any outdoor painting in oils as the Impressionist painters but he made vivid sketches and watercolors direct from nature, always trying to show exactly what was before him. He was an important figure in the development of Impressionism, particularly through his influence on Monet. Monet said of Jongkind:

""He (Johan Barthold Jongkind) asked to see my sketches, invited me to come and work with him, explained the whys and wherefores underlining his work and thereby, completed the training that I had already received from Boudin. He became from this moment, my true master and it is to him, that I owe the definitive education of my eye."" Claude Monet

He painted two views of Notre Dame in Paris, one seen on a winter morning, the other at sunset. In this way the real subject of his paintings became the atmospheric conditions of the moment rather than the actual object before him. He underwent great hardship, and suffered from persecution mania and depressions.

There is to be a major Exhibition of his paintings and watercolors at the Musee d'Orsay from June 2 to September 5, 2004.

Claude Monet
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

This view of the Tuileries Gardens shows the Pavillon de Flore of the Louvre in the left hand corner and a glimpse of the Seine in the upper right. The gardens were designed in 1664 by Andre Le Notre , the famous gardener to the king of France, Louis XIV, who also designed the gardens at Versailles. At the east end of the Gardens was the Tuileries Palace which enclosed the western side of the present day Louvre, connecting the Denon and Richelieu wings. It was planned by Catherine de Medici and begun in 1564 but burned down by the Communards in 1871.

Edouard Manet painted 'Music at the Tuileries' depicting people listening to one of the bi-weekly concerts in the Gardens. Camille Pissarro took an apartment on the facing rue de Rivoli (#204) where he painted five views of the Tuileries Gardens and eight looking towards the Louvre.

Place Valhubert is on Quai Saint Bernard by the Seine, just to the north of the Jardin des Plantes and Gare d'Austerlitz.

Armand Guillaumin, was a French impressionism landscape painter who, though not as well-known as his contemporaries, painted beautiful pictures, some of Paris scenes. He was born in Paris where his parents had moved from central France.. At the age of 15 he started working in his uncle's shop, whilst studying drawing in the evenings. In 1860 he obtained a job on the Paris-Orleans railway, continuing to paint in his spare time. In 1861 he entered the Academie Suisse and met Cezanne and Pissarro, with whom he was to remain on close terms for the rest of his life. They spent some time together at Pontoise, and Cezanne was greatly impressed by a view of the Seine that Guillaumin painted in 1871 and his The Seine at Bercy was after Guillaumin.

Claude Monet
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

Rue Montorgueil if just north of Les Halles and is still a busy market street lined with cafes and food shops. It was painted by Monet in celebration of the end of the World Fair and is perhaps a symbolic painting marking the emergence of a democratic society and its roots in contemporary France. The technique used suggests the animation of the crowd and the wavering of red, white and blue flags, the three colours of modern France.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Oil on canvas
Musee Marmottan

Pissarro is increasingly recognized as one of the great masters of Impressionism. He was born in the Dutch West Indies to a French/Jewish father and a Creole mother. This painting, dated 1879, is one of several great masterpieces in which Pissarro captured the effect of snow on the streets of his beloved Paris. He was the oldest of the French Impressionist painters and also among the most committed to the group's independent exhibitions. Living in countryside to the north of Paris, Pissarro's landscapes were often peopled with peasants. These figures became the focus of his work when he adopted the pointillist technique in the 1880s. In common with many artists and writers of his day, he became a fervent anarchist. His later pictures include a famous series of views of Paris.

Victor Dargaud (1873-1921)
Oil on canvas
Musee Marmottan

Victor Dargaud was a faithful recorder of city life, particularly Paris. He showed a keen interest in the everyday street life of the Parisian bourgeoisie in the years following the Franco Prussian war, that is from 1870. This picture shows the Statue of Liberty in the course of construction off the Rue de Courcelles, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Dargaud was also painting contemporaneously with Manet and the Impressionists, whilst their interpretations of urban life and architecture capture a mood, Dargaud's painting represents a captured moment. Others of his paintings of views of Paris are held in the Carnavalet Museum.

Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884).
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

The viewpoint of 'La Place des Pyramides' is looking south past the statue of Joan d'Arc. To the left can be seen the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Marsan after having been destroyed during the burning of the Tuileries Palace in 1871 to which it was joined. Another painting of de Nittis showing the ruins of the Tuileries Palace after its burning in 1871, 'The Place de Carrousel and the Ruins of the Tuileries Palace in 1882 is at the Louvre but is in storage at the moment.

De Nittis was Italian from Naples, where he attended the School of Beaux Arts. He continued his studies in Florence and went to Paris in 1867 where he soon made a name as a painter and very accomplished etcher. He returned to Italy for two years, then settled permanently in Paris where his paintings and etchings attracted great interest. At the peak of his career he died, aged only 38 before fulfilling his potential. His etching technique was superb. His subjects included city scenes of Paris and London, charming portraits and some genre subjects.

Siebe Ten Cate (1858-1908)
Oil on canvas
The Louvre

Ten Cate was a dutch painter who lived in Paris. This painting shows a much darker vision of the burning of the Tuileries Palace by the Commune in 1871, perhaps deservedly so. 350 other public edifices or private buildings including the Hotel de Ville (Paris' Town Hall), symbols of repression, were destroyed at this time by the Commune. The Paris Commune was a brief socialist, reformist state in Paris from March 26 to May 30, 1871 formed after the terrible hardships of the Siege of Paris and the Franco-Prussian War of 1970 when the French were defeated. It ended in government troops slaughtering unarmed citizens. 30,000 are believed to have died. Of the more than 30,000 others who were arrested, many were shot and 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia. Few Communards escaped, mainly through the Prussian lines to the north. Government losses were around 900. Paris remained under martial law for five years.

The above painting is at the Louvre but not always on show. One very similar by Ten Cate can be viewed at all times at the Musee Carnavalet.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

An idea of life in Paris as portrayed by the Impressionists was concerned both with high society and the poor. The 'Orchestra of the Opera' gives a flavor of a night at the ballet at the sumptuous new Opera Garnier. Several of the famous paintings and pastels of ballet dancers such as the much loved 'The Dancing Lesson', 'L'etoile' and 'Le Foyer de la danse a l'Opera de la rue Le Peletier' by Degas can be seen at the Musee d'Orsay. The Opera Garnier is now mainly used to stage ballets with operas being presented at the new Opera House at the Bastille. There are tours of the Opera Garnier.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

'Absinthe' caused a scandal at the 1876 Impressionist exhibition for its cruel depiction of a 'low' subject. He presents the woman in an inebriated stupor, an image of loneliness in the bright glare of a gas lit cafe, off the boulevard of a crowded city. The place Pigalle was the site of the market for artists' models on Mondays and on other days artists would met in the cafes. The cafe Degas portrayed was on the corner between rue Frochot and rue Pigalle and was called the "Cafe de la Nouvelle-Athenes", now a theater is housed in the building. It was where the Impressionists met, and which they in fact called their headquarters in the 1870s. Degas was born in rue St. George and lived and kept studios nearby all of his life. The two people in the painting was actually a model, the actress, Ellen Andree, and the other a friend, the engraver., Marcellin Desboutin.

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

The Moulin de la Galette was a dancing cafe at the foot of Montmartre hill which is now at 79, rue Lepic The hill was then a suburb of Paris where a few mills subsisted, together with many vegetable gardens, and where a working class population lived. It was also there that the Church of the Sacre Coeur was being built from 1872 onwards. At this time Montmartre had not yet become favored by artists and places of entertainment and Sunday Balls were held at the 'Moulin de la Galette' from 3 o'clock in the afternoon for a working-class and mainly neighborhood clientele. The site of the Cafe was an enclosed courtyard next to two mills just to the west of the Sacre-Coeur, then in the process of being built in gratitude for deliverance from the Franco-Prussian War. A third mill was close by, but at this time the mills were mainly picturesque landmarks. The name 'Moulin de la Galette' was derived from the pancakes sold there. The site of the Musee Montmartre at 12 rue Cortot was the courtyard building Renoir rented for its proximity to the Cafe, and in whose garden he painted 'The Swing' (Musee d'Orsay). The "Moulin de la Galette" was also painted in the 1880s by Toulouse-Lautrec and van Gogh, and at the turn of the century by Picasso.

Henri Fantin-Latour(1836-1904)
Oil on canvas
Musee d'Orsay

While at the Musee d'Orsay it is interesting to see Fantin-Latour's painting in homage to Manet which depicts Manet as the artist and leader of the young avant-garde painters and supporters. The portrait he is working on is of the poet Zacharie Astruc and standing behind them, from left to right, are the German artist Otto Scholdere, Renoir, Zola, the musician Edmond Maitre, Bazille, and Monet. Manet spent most of his life in either the Batignolles district, which is just northeast of the Gare Saint-Lazare or in the Quartier de l'Europe, his final residence being at 39, rue de Saint-Petersburg. Batignolles, between Place de l'Europe and Montmartre, was the home of many artists at this time. Their favorite cafe in the mid to late 1860's was the "Cafe Guerbois" at 9, rue des Batignolles (today avenue de Clichy, just off Place de Clichy). It was here that plans were made for the first independent exhibition of 1874. Later their cafe of choice was the "Cafe de la Nouvelle-Athenes' in Place Pigalle. Cafe life was very important to these artists as during the day they worked alone in their studios and in the evening they met, discussed, compared notes, planned and relaxed. Manet was the the center of the group, others were Monet, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Bazille, Fantin-Latour and the writer, Emile Zola. When in town Cezanne and Pissarro would join them. They shared studios and models, and supported each other both in their work and, from the wealthy ones, financially. Frederic Bazille (1841-1870) had an atelier at 9, rue de la Condamine, a painting of which, 'Studio in the rue de la Condamine' (1870), can also be seen at the Musee d'Orsay. In it he depicts his fellow artists Renoir, Monet and Manet, as well as Emile Zola and the musician Edmond Maitre. This painter of great promise was killed in action in the Franco-Prussian War at the age of 29.