A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts

“A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts” by Jean Béraud depicts the pedestrian bridge spanning the Seine between the Institut de France, visible in the background, and the Cour Carrée of the Louvre.

Béraud positioned himself on the Quai du Louvre and showed a sample of Parisian society crossing the bridge on a windy grey day.

Pont des Arts is the name of the footbridge with a unique view of Paris. It has sometimes served as a place for art exhibitions and is today a “studio en Plein air” for painters, artists, and photographers.

Since late 2008, tourists have taken to attaching padlocks (love locks) with their first names written or engraved on them to the railing or the grate on the side of the bridge, then throwing the key into the Seine river below, as a romantic gesture.

Since 2012 the number of locks covering the bridge has become overwhelming with over 700,000 locks.

This fad has created a safety concern for city authorities and an aesthetic issue for Parisians, and the authorities have taken actions to discourage the practice of love locks.

Art historian Kenneth Clark wrote:

“I am standing on the Pont des Arts in Paris.
On the one side of the Seine is the harmonious, reasonable façade of the Institute of France, built as a college in about 1670.
On the other bank is the Louvre, built continuously from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century: classical architecture at its most splendid and assured.
Just visible upstream is the Cathedral of Notre Dame …. the most rigorously intellectual façade in the whole of Gothic art.
[…] What is civilization? I do not know.
I can’t define it in abstract terms –yet.
But I think I can recognize it when I see it:
and I am looking at it now.”

A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts

Title: A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts
Artist: Jean Béraud
Created: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: H: 39.7 cm (15.6 ″); W: 56.5 cm (22.2 ″)
Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art – MET

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Sunday at the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris

“Sunday at the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris” by Jean Béraud depicts a view of the rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, in Paris which had recently become a fashionable shopping street.

The church in the painting was designed in the eighteenth century and was listed as a historical monument in1993. Its style, with classical Greek columns, makes it looks like that of a Roman temple with stained-glass windows.

It was built on the site of a destroyed chapel in 1739 under the sponsorship of Louis XV, who wanted to give back a sanctuary to the district.

This painting was exhibited in the Salon of 1877 and was seen as a visual record of contemporary Parisian life.

Sunday at the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris

Title: Sunday at the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, Paris
Artist: Jean Béraud
Created: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: H: 39.7 cm (15.6 ″); W: 56.5 cm (22.2 ″)
Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art – MET

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Parisian Place de la Concorde

“Parisienne place de la Concorde” by Jean Béraud depicts a fashionable woman holding a package crossing one of the major public squares in Paris, France, on a cold winter’s day.

The Place de la Concorde is the largest square in the French capital and the site of many notable public executions during the French Revolution.

Parisian Place de la Concorde

Title: Parisian Place de la Concorde
Français: Parisienne place de la Concorde
Artist: Jean Béraud
Created: 1885
Medium: Oil on Board
Dimensions: H: 39.7 cm (15.6 ″); W: 56.5 cm (22.2 ″)
Museum: Musée Carnavalet

Jean Béraud

Jean Béraud (1849 – 1935) was a French painter renowned for his paintings depicting the life of Paris.

His pictures of the Champs Elysees, cafés, Montmartre, and the banks of the Seine, detail the everyday Parisian experience.

Jean Béraud

Jean-Georges Beraud: A collection of works

A Tour of French Artists

Georges de La Tour (1593 – 1652)
Nicolas Poussin (1594 – 1665)
Élisabeth Sophie Chéron (1648 – 1711)
François Boucher (1703 – 1770)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 – 1806)
Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825)
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867)
Eugène Delacroix (1798 – 1863)
Rosa Bonheur (1822 – 1899)
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824 – 1904)
Édouard Manet (1832 – 1883)
Edgar Degas (1834 – 1917)
Paul Cézanne (1839 – 1906)
Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917)
Claude Monet (1840 – 1926)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919)
Berthe Morisot (1841 – 1895)
Henri Rousseau (1844 – 1910)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848 – 1894)
Jean Béraud (1849 – 1935)
Vincent van Gogh (1853 – 1890)
Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901)
Artists and their Art

Jean Béraud (1849 -1936)

Jean Béraud’s Art

To be added:

The Newsroom of the Journal des Débats – Musée d’Orsay
Parisian Street Scene – Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Magdalen at the House of the Pharisees (La Madeleine chez le Pharisien ) – Musée d’Orsay
Representation at the Theatre des Varietes – Musée des Arts Décoratifs
After the Misdeed (Après la faute) – National Gallery, DC
The Wait – Musée d’Orsay
An Argument in the Corridors of the Opera – Musée Carnavalet
Courses à Longchamp, l’arrivée au poteau – Musée Carnavalet
Paris Kiosk – Walters Art Museum
Le boulevard des Capucines et le théâtre du Vaudeville – Musée Carnavalet
La rue de la Paix [no 3], Paris. 1907 -Musée Carnavalet
Paris, rue du Havre – National Gallery, DC