Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

« Previous Post | Next Post »
« Previous post in category | Next post in category »

Art: Impressionism and Urban Renewal

In 1859, Baron George-Eugene Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, began overhauling Paris.  The ultimate result was a masterpiece of urban rationality - straight streets, buildings of the same height, squares, a mappable city.

On the way to clarity, though, the city was “rendered illegible,” according to art historian T. J. Clark.  He adds that Paris was depicted in the media as “parade, phantasmagoria, dream, dumbshow, mirage, masquerade.  Traditional ironies at the expense of the metropolis mingled with new metaphors of specifically visual untruth.  They were intended to stress the sheer ostentation and flimsiness of the new streets and apartment blocks, and beyond that to indicate the more and more intrusive machinery of illusion built into the city and determining its use.”

Margin Jay suggests that this urban reconstruction “was soon registered in the Impressionist demolition of three-dimensional space.”