Boulevard Montmartre at Night

Camille Pissarro painted this glowing nighttime scene in 1897 from the window of a hotel room overlooking one of Paris's busiest streets. By then he was in his late sixties and suffering from an eye condition that made painting outdoors difficult, so he rented rooms with good views and worked from indoors instead. This turned out to be a clever solution, giving him a perfect perch to watch the boulevard change through different times of day and weather. He created a whole series of these views, but this is the only one in the group that shows the street after dark.

What makes the painting work is the way Pissarro captures the feel of a wet evening rather than every little detail. The streetlamps and shop windows blur into smears of gold and orange, their reflections shimmering across the damp pavement below. Tiny dark figures and carriages move along the boulevard, suggesting the bustle of city life without spelling it out. As one of the founding figures of Impressionism, Pissarro had spent decades chasing fleeting effects of light, and here he shows just how comfortable he was letting loose brushstrokes do the talking.