Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
The Boulevard Montmartre at Night
Camille Pissarro · Impressionism
- Artist
- Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)
- Date
- 1897
- Dimensions
- 53.3 x 64.8 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
This painting shows the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris after dark, seen from a hotel window high above. Gas and electric street lamps shine in two long rows, their light reflected on the wet pavement, as carriages pass below.
A closer look
Pissarro, suffering from an eye infection that made it hard for him to work outdoors, rented a room in the Grand Hôtel de Russie in 1897 and painted a series of views of the boulevard at different times of day and in different weather. This is the only night scene in the series. The lights are rendered as quick dabs of yellow and white, their reflections smeared on the rain-soaked street, and the shop windows glow along the pavements. It is one of the first great paintings of a modern city by night.
More by Camille Pissarro
In this gallery
Woman in a Green Headscarf
Haymaking at Éragny
The Boulevard Montmartre, Afternoon Sun
The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning