Place de la Concorde 

Curator: Up next, we have what I understand is Antoine Blanchard's "Place de la Concorde," rendered with oil paints in a classic Impressionistic style. There's such an energy here. What strikes you most at first glance? Editor: The light. That muted, pearly light suffusing everything… almost a romantic glow on a rainy Parisian day. It evokes such a strong emotional reaction. A sense of calm but with this constant, ceaseless movement. It also immediately reads very French, in all of its muted pomp. Curator: Absolutely. Blanchard really captures that quintessential Parisian atmosphere, doesn’t he? If you think about the Place de la Concorde itself, its role as the site of public executions during the French Revolution, that obelisk piercing the sky becomes this rather fascinating symbol of both power and the cyclical nature of history. Editor: Yes, I can see how that sharp monument might recall older power structures being uprooted in real-time during the late 18th century, yet then solidified in architectural and symbolic terms as the "new" power. The visual tension here is the feeling that things will remain monumentally frozen, almost preserved in the city's visual culture. Curator: Indeed. I'm also drawn to how the figures are rendered. Look closely and you see the fashion choices from that era on full display and acting out their lives, set against the grandeur of the square. There is that double-decker bus which suggests the onset of mass society with more layers of people able to peer onto public spaces. But beyond their representation in paint on canvas, what does this vista communicate to us as public? Editor: Their postures and clothes are markers of wealth but there are hints of industrial development beginning to take shape around them, especially in contrast to horse-drawn carriages and public transport. This offers such an open-ended picture of socio-economic life, inviting viewers to speculate on it, almost forever! Curator: Very true. I agree. Editor: A picture of life on display that somehow also becomes our life, through this painting. Curator: Precisely. Well said.