Ah, the City of Light. In the 19th century, Paris was the beating heart of the Impressionist movement, and artists fascinated by glorious natural light produced iconic paintings that linger in the mind’s eye. But the Impressionists’ depictions of the varied expressions of the sun do not tell the whole story of Parisian light. What really fired the city was the incandescent light bulb, which Thomas Edison introduced in the United States in 1879 and in Paris in 1881. Art historian S. Hollis Clayson illuminates the true visual history of the great French capital.
This program is generously underwritten by the Takiff Family Foundation.
