A very quick note to say that Sebastian Smee’s new book “Paris in Ruins: The Siege, the Commune and the Birth of Impressionism” has just been published and, if you are looking for a good art/history read, I’d highly recommend it!

Paris, January 1871 – the final, agonising days of the Franco-Prussian War. As the German army cements its advantage, shells rattle through the Left Bank. It is a bitterly cold winter; there is no fuel, no medicine, no food. The city’s poorer citizens have long turned to eating rats, cats and dogs. France has been brought to its knees. Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas are trapped in the besieged city. Renoir and Bazille have joined regiments outside of Paris, while Monet and Pissarro fled the country just in time. Out of the Siege and the Commune, these artists developed a newfound sense of the fragility of life. A feeling for transience – reflected in Impressionism’s emphasis on fugitive light, shifting seasons, glimpsed street scenes, and the impermanence of all things – would change art history forever. [Oneworld publishers]

What’s especially interesting perhaps for our Art, Books & Culture Research Group is the relationship – political, social and artistic – between Edouard Manet and Berthe Morisot, and Sebastian Smee gets us as close to ‘hearing’ their conversations as possible; it’s a fantastic insight into time, place and artistic inspiration.

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