Boulevard de la Madeleine, Winter 

Edouard Cortes’s "Boulevard de la Madeleine, Winter" is an oil painting, and the qualities of that material really make the picture. Look at how the strokes of pigment capture the wet, reflective streets of Paris. It’s all done with an economy of means, a relatively quick method. Cortes was part of a tradition of French painting that valued direct observation, and the ability to put down a scene rapidly, as if capturing a fleeting moment. The very substance of oil paint, with its capacity for both blending and impasto, served him well. In this kind of painting, of course, we think about the artist’s individual skill. But it’s also important to remember that Cortes was working within a well-established system, not just of art, but of art commerce. He was creating desirable images for a bourgeois clientele, and he knew how to deliver. The painting might seem traditional, but it reflects modern realities of labor and consumption, and it challenges the traditional distinction between fine art and craft.