These 19th-century Parisian Artists & Critics Radically Rethought Art-- & Politics

Over the past few years, one of the Parisian neighborhoods I’ve enjoyed exploring has been the Batignolles, an area in the 17th arrondissement stretching northeast from the Pigalle-Montmartre district that’s currently best-known for its semi-residential, comfortably middle-class life. It’s got some fantastic bakeries and markets, a romantic square/park filled with trees, water features and wild birds, and an (increasingly trendy) collection of boutiques and restaurants.

But despite its sleepy, semi-bourgeois persona in the present day, the area’s history is rich with artistic and political radicalism. I learned a long time ago that a group of painters and art critics known as the Batignolles Group, informally led by Edouard Manet and including the likes of Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and the novelist and critic Emile Zola, worked, met and debated in the area. But sadly, most of their traces and haunts have disappeared, effaced by successive waves of urban development. I’ve sort of been “looking for them” ever since each time I visit the Batignolles, but aside from a commemorative plaque here and there, I haven’t had much success.

Henri Fantin-Latour, “A Studio at Les Batignolles”(1870) (Wikimedia Commons)

This week, I was determined to bring their story to life— and offer readers a sort of roadmap for understanding the Batignolles Group’s vast contributions to French art, culture and politics, not least as early practitioners and theorists of what would later be dubbed “Impressionism”. I sought out one of the world’s foremost experts on this precise topic, Professor Philip Nord of Princeton University, to help me do just that. Happy listening!