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Paris train station9/17/2023 The artist is capturing the Cour du Havre in all of its glory and modern chaos. The indistinct nature of many of these objects can be attributed to Pissarro’s perception of modernity, with its bustling activity around the train station. In conveying the essence of the city, viewers can also spot details that would have been familiar to a late 19th century Parisian, such as the Morris column in the foreground, horse carriages, cafe tables (suggested by the white tablecloths), and possibly an omnibus along the left hand passageway. Pissarro’s variable technique was a means of illustrating the city’s incessant motion and commerce. As Brettell and Joachim Pissarro describe, the artist was fascinated by the movement in cities, seeing it as an insight to the exchange of goods and labor (4). The latter appears much more hastily done, which could be an aspect of the high levels of activity that Pissarro was trying to convey. For instance, notice the carriage in the lower left corner compared to the one in the upper right. Even within the painting, the artist’s technique changes. In Cour du Havre, Pissarro’s markings are loose and experimental with varying texture and thickness. Whether that be rural field workers or city traffic, he thoroughly embraced the idea of modernity in both his subject and style. Pissarro, like many of his Impressionist friends, was fascinated with modern life. Camille Pissarro, Cour du Havre (Gare St. With this activity, the train station and the people around it were rich subjects for artists like Pissarro who took an interest in modernity. The Gare Saint-Lazare was not only a transportation center it was a gathering point, a place for reunions and farewells. Behind this entrance was the network of railroads that connected Paris to the suburbs and far reaches of France. The station itself expanded several times to include the grand façade and the courtyard, Cour du Havre, in front of the east wing (3). The Rue d’Amsterdam and Rue Saint Lazare to the east and south were tightly packed with new apartment buildings. As such, the Gare Saint-Lazare served as a grand introduction to modern life for many.ĭuring the earlier decades of Haussmannization (c.1850-1870s) the Saint-Lazare station and its surrounding area were heavily renovated. The city’s massive influx of visitors attests to the power of the railway industry to support commerce. The train stations were the entrances to Paris, thus a point of access to commercial and entertainment districts (2). According to the art historian Robert Herbert, about 40 percent of train riders in Paris went through Saint-Lazare, and most of those passengers came from the suburbs to work or to enjoy the city’s leisure activities. Its renovations and railways, added throughout the 19th century, was part of the capital’s industrialization that contributed to its population growth. The Gare Saint-Lazare, which opened in 1837, holds a place as the city’s first commercial train station (1). Although the Cour du Havre painting and the postcard of the Gare Saint-Lazare depict a shared location, they demonstrate different aspects of modernity, with the use of contrasting styles due to Pissarro’s ideological influences and the postcard’s commercial function. Pissarro’s work is an oil painting focusing on the energy of the crowd in the courtyard, and the other is a photograph, recording the building’s architecture with an almost archival sensibility. This entrance to Paris’s main transportation hub is captured via two very different methods. Unlike earlier Impressionist portrayals of Saint-Lazare, most notably by Monet, these two works do not feature train cars or the railways they both depict the station’s south façade. Lazare) (1893) and a postcard depicting the same location, c.1907-1914. This essay will focus on two images: Camille Pissarro’s Cour du Havre (Gare St. Medieval neighborhoods had been razed and rebuilt, and new public amenities like shopping centers and entertainment halls were alive with activity, enabled by train stations like Saint-Lazare which encouraged both travel and commerce. By the early 1890’s, Paris was well established as a modern capital. The Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris was an icon of urbanism that Impressionist artists used to capture the changing nature of modern life. Whitney O’Reardon researched and wrote an earlier version for Professor McBreen’s Modernism and Mass Culture in France 1848-1914. This essay won the Friends of Art Award, 2021 for outstanding written work in History of Art. Using a Paris postcard as an ideological contrast, Whitney O’Reardon (Class of 2022) suggests how Pissarro embedded politics in his rendering of an urban crowd at Gare St.
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