The Experience That Altered My Perspective on Art Forever

Finding deeper meanings in an unexpected corner of Paris

Extérieur de la gare Saint-Lazare, effet de soleil (1877) by Claude Monet. Oil on canvas. 60 × 81 cm. Private collection. Image source

It was on a sunny, blustery day in spring when I visited Paris for the first time. I was 19 years old and not long out of college. My intention was to go to university to study art and become a painter, but I was having doubts.

So I saved up to go travelling instead and Paris was my first stop.

One of my preoccupations at the time was to visit the territory of Impressionism. I had become interested in the history of art after taking a course in the subject in preparation for art school. Specifically, we were taught about the arrival of modern art and how so many experimental painters from the early 20th century took their cue from the spontaneous methods of the Impressionists. The seminal art movement was framed as a pivotal moment in a bold revolutionary narrative.

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Oil on canvas. 131 × 175 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Image source

So, as many pilgrims to Paris do, I ventured up to Montmartre where many Impressionists made their home. Claude Monet lodged there several times, first as a student in the late 1850s; Auguste Renoir rented a workshop near the Sacré Coeur to paint…