Caillebotte Cassatt Degas Manet Monet Morisot Pissarro Renoir

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Pissarro captures the feel of life in Paris at the turn of the century. This busy boulevard in the Montmartre district is lined by wide new sidewalks. Gas street lamps, a recent invention, light the way for horse-drawn carriages. Shoppers hurry past brightly lit shop windows.

Modern Paris
In 1853, Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann set out to redesign the city of Paris. Shabby old buildings were torn down and replaced with 40,000 new buildings, including grand hotels, theaters, apartment buildings and department stores (a new invention).

Narrow, winding streets were replaced by 85 miles of wide tree-lined boulevards graced with gas street lamps, sidewalks and even public toilets.

The redesign of Paris was not just to make the city more beautiful. Not long before, the citizens of Paris had revolted against the government, barricading many streets and shooting at the government soldiers. Napoleon III knew that wide boulevards would be much harder to barricade. Also, with wider streets, the army would be able to move quickly throughout the city.

Painting a rainy night
To make the sidewalks look wet, Pissarro painted them with reflections of trees and storefronts. Everything is blurry, as it would look to us on a rainy night. The street lamp closest to us has a halo around it, an effect created by moisture in the air. All this produces the effect of a rainy night in the city.

"I am delighted to paint those Paris streets that people have come to call ugly, but which are so silvery, so luminous and vital…This is completely modern!"
- Camille Pissarro

Van Gogh and Pissarro
The skies in Pissarro's other paintings look more like real skies, while this one consists of a fan of separate brush strokes. Perhaps Pissarro was influenced by his friend, Van Gogh, who loved to paint swirling night skies.