Unromantic but true: Great cities don’t just happen; they’re engineered.
Otherwise, Paris might have become the City of Blight instead of the City of Light. In the 1860s, Napoleon III dispatched urban planner Baron Haussmann to draw the clean, efficient edge of modernity over the overcrowded medieval capital. Tenements were demolished, streets widened, gardens planted, sewers installed and more than 20,000 gas lamps erected.
Advocates hailed the changes, critics mourned losses, and practitioners of the nascent art of photography reveled in documenting the transformation. Witness this monumental urban renewal project through their lenses in Paris in Transition, which opens Sunday the National Gallery of Art.
Documentary photography in the 19th century was literally a big undertaking, since those splendid atmospheric shots demanded on-the-spot development. Negatives were the same size as the photographs, explained curator Sarah Kennel. Cameramen transported mobile darkrooms caravan-style, packing bulky plates of glass, solutions and other paraphernalia.
Their output endured, now sweeping us from fresh-paved boulevards to unmarked brothels, busy markets, manicured parks, newly cast statues and sweeping aqueducts. The artfulness arrests our postmodern eyes, but back in these pioneers’ day, it was the technology that amazed. Proclaimed one critic, “It is life itself, and [Charles] Nègre has stopped it in a hundredth of a second.”
In an exquisitely detailed full-frontal frame-filling record of the Louvre’s new library, Édouard-Denis Baldus recorded a common experience of Second Empire Parisians — the juxtaposition of elegant exteriors with chaotic interiors of buildings under renovation. Shots of the Seine, its waters still, its banks cleared for development, corralling a backdrop of towering buildings — silent as illustrations or old movie sets.
At first glance, the Virgin Mary in Auguste Mestral’s 1854 composition appears alive, wistfully contemplating her fate amid construction debris during the re-Gothication of the Notre Dame. It’s a brilliant merger of sacred and profane. Having lost her high-profile tier to new sculpted figures, the Virgin and her child were eventually relocated atop the cathedral.
Modernization led to a great gig for Charles Marville, the photographer commissioned to record structures and statues slated for the wrecking ball. Then there’s the painterly work of Edmond Lebel, whose legacy includes a marvelous 1863 still life of musical instruments.
Even failed photo projects left visual mementos to savor. Félix Tournachon’s attempts through the 1850s to photograph Paris from the air were thwarted by gas from his hot-air balloon ruining the sensitive photographic plates. Thankfully, that left him time to stage and snap his utterly delightful “Self-Portrait with Wife Ernestine in a Balloon Gondola.” Persistence was eventually rewarded in 1858, when Tournachon (aka Nadar) produced the world’s first aerial photograph.
The third gallery includes early 20th century highlights from previous exhibitions. André Kertész’s “The Ants,” formally known as “Under the Eiffel Tower,” depicts through shadow the icon born of the belle epoque. American master Alfred Stieglitz trained his lens downward on a workhorse and dog; overcast weather and unexpected composition make for a gem.
Tracking subcultures that mushroom in cosmopolitan soil, Brassaï stops time with portraits of “Venuses of the crossroads” — prostitutes — and a transvestite ball.
With modernity came a burgeoning bourgeoisie class having time for long, leisurely strolls. The French even had a name for this past-time: “Flânerie.” One devoted flâneur, Eugène Atget, used his camera to capture mannequins enlivening shop windows, lion-head door-knockers, exquisitely crafted store signs.
The capital of art, fashion and pleasure was not born, but made. Glimpses of Paris in Transition justify some flânerie of your own.
PARIS IN TRANSITION
On view Sunday-May 6
» Venue: National Gallery of Art, West Building, Sixth and Constitution Ave. NW
» Info: 202-737-4215; nga.gov
» Related programs: Lecture by curator Sarah Kennel at 2 p.m. March 4
