The myth of Paris: city marketing avant la lettre

In 1867, Claude Monet painted the view of Paris from the balcony of the illustrious Louvre. Monet literally turned his back on classical art to capture life on the street, the randomness of his here and now. A radical break with the norm. Paris was on the move those years, there was life, the world was at its feet. A ‘liveable’ city with growing pains, driving the very ones who had the least to the frayed edges. They became three paintings showing the new face of the city.

In spring 2025, Kunstmuseum Den Haag will show New Paris: from Monet to Morisot, a major Impressionism exhibition, focusing on the depiction of that new Paris. In collaboration with the Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin) and Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin, Ohio), these three cityscapes will come together for the first time in the Netherlands. But New Paris will also show 65 works of French Impressionism by Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Frédéric Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Cezanne, Armand Guillaumin, Mary Cassatt, from collections around the world. The Impressionist layer is complemented by prints by Honoré Daumier, among others, and photographs by inventor, photographer and hot-air balloon pilot Felix Nadar. 

From Monet to Morisot 
Renowned and recently deceased art historian Linda Nochlin described Monet's three 1867 cityscapes as ‘the most meaningful gesture’ by an artist towards a museum. New Paris shows the ‘birth’ of Impressionism and the decade that followed: the siege of the city by Prussia in 1870, famine, struggles for equality, civil war and the reconstruction that followed. By charting the imagination of Paris from Monet to Morisot, the exhibition is a portrait of the modern city in general.  

The ideal city 
Led by urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the old medieval city was demolished in record time from 1853 onwards, and just as quickly rebuilt into a modern metropolis. This megalomaniacal project stemmed from new conceptions of a liveable city, focusing on safety and infrastructure, hygiene, social cohesion, nature and leisure. The transformation of Paris reflects these visions of the ideal layout of a city - and thus of society. Yet it is mainly becoming a city for a new elite. Poor people are driven to the edges and speculation reigns in the housing market from which only a few benefit. Labour migration leads to exploitation and friction between the different classes in society. Daumier's cartoons illustrate with humour and sharp sarcasm the impact of these developments on the population.

Protest Parisienne 
The fashionable Parisienne becomes the epitome of new Paris. There are suddenly public spaces like department stores and theatres that offer her much more freedom. It is watching and being watched. Times are changing, which is exactly what fashion shows on the streets. In Paris, the new woman is everywhere: from who wears couture, who makes it, who portrays it to who looks at it and what that releases - the Parisienne as a symbol. At the same time, women artists like Morisot and Cassat had fewer privileges and access to Paris than the other Impressionists. They could not, for instance, go into the café with male colleagues - that was still not done. Where, for instance, Manet or Renoir depict the parisienne as a type or symbol of the city, Cassatt and Morisot depict women as individuals. The female gaze as a counterpoint to the prevailing inequality.