Mardi gras on the boulevards 1897

Camille Pissarro

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Keywords: Mardigrasboulevards

Work Overview

Mardi Gras on the Boulevards
La Mi-Careme sur les Boulevards
Camille Pissarro
Date: 1897
Style: Impressionism
Genre: cityscape
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 65.5 x 81.2 cm (25 13/16 x 31 15/16 in.)
Location: Fogg Museum (Harvard Art Museums), Cambridge, MA, US


Known for his rural landscapes, the impressionist painter Pissarro turned his eye to the city of Paris only in the 1890s, during what was to be the last decade of his long career. Although his Parisian views were undertaken partly as a commercial venture, they also presented the artist with an exciting new challenge: how to capture the evanescent energy of the large crowds that filled the wide boulevards lined with tightly packed buildings of modern Paris. This painting is one of three canvases of the same subject that Pissarro painted in 1897 from the window of a room in the Grand Hôtel de Russie. It depicts the celebratory Mardi Gras parade winding up the Boulevard Montmartre, as streamers and confetti flutter in the March breeze.