ALL ABOUT SCALE

Napoléon III appointed Georges-Eugène Haussmann to “aerate, unify and beautify” the city of Paris in 1850.

- JOHN O’ HERN

Haussmann created the long boulevards, plazas, and apartment blocks we know today, wiping out the chaos of medieval lanes. He left out the district known as Le Marais. Now known as a place of cafés and galleries, the district has traffic-packed, twisting lanes as well as the ordered serenity of Place des the Vosges.

Ben Aronson has said, “The main objective is not merely to capture a physical likeness but rather to aim for the most concentrated form of a powerful visual experience.” What better way to concentrate the energy of Le Marais than in a 10½-inch square painting? Speaking of Monet’s painting of a train station in Paris, he commented, “the true subject of the painting wasn’t the train or how realistically it was painted, the real subject was Monet himself. That realization was a turning point for me, understanding that it wasn’t simply about making still life objects, figures or buildings look real—it was about how I personally saw the world around me and communicated in paint how it made me feel.”