North Station 

Curator: Ah, look at this. Edouard Cortes’s painting, simply titled "North Station." It's one of his cityscape paintings, rendered in oil. Editor: Immediately, it strikes me as a beautiful mood piece. Grey, wet… you can almost smell the rain slicked cobblestones and feel the cold seeping into your bones. Curator: He really captures a specific moment, doesn't he? It’s bustling, the painting comes alive with pedestrians hurrying past, horse-drawn carriages waiting. He clearly delights in the flâneur, capturing an ordinary city life, and using color to communicate. Notice how he sets the buildings aglow against an almost brooding sky? Editor: That interplay of light and shadow is stunning. There's almost a Hopper-esque alienation here despite the crowds. The individuals are swallowed by the grand spectacle of the city itself. Makes one ponder how the modernization was also affecting our collective sense of belonging, even in the early 20th Century. Curator: Oh, absolutely! But isn't there something comforting in its familiarity, in his dedication to celebrating Paris’ urban landscape? Perhaps a sense of belonging *because* of the chaos? The flower stalls seem to hint at Cortes’s effort to brighten this somber palette and also the life of the flâneur that buys and exchanges them. Editor: Perhaps a deliberate tension? This contrast underscores that inherent contradiction of modern life, the tension between nature and modernity, commerce, beauty, isolation... Curator: That's precisely what I see. He’s holding the beauty of a Parisian afternoon, against the greys of progress. Beautiful, melancholic... A celebration, and maybe just a little lament. Editor: A dialogue between the soul and the street, captured in brushstrokes. Not a bad place to leave us, thinking about it now.