The View from Notre Dame

This article relates to our discussion of the end of painting and pictorialism as Clark introduces us to the process by which painters began to expand what they depict in their paintings. As the painters began to depict more realistic scenes of Paris as the city began to rebuild, the society began to reflect what was being depicted, which I found very interesting. The paintings served as a representation of the now more unified community, yet also class divisions were also apparent. On page 60 of the reader, Clark discusses how it had never been clear before how the bourgeois dined before the paintings revealed that lifestyle to the public. I found it very interesting that middle class housewives adapted their mealtimes to those shown in paintings of the boulevard. The people of the time were adapting themselves to fit the image of the society and to assimilate themselves to what was shown as the norm.
This article reveals the process by which paintings began to become more realistic and intend to accurately depict the society, the scenery, and the people of Paris. By forming an image of the community and the area through art, people began to become more attuned to the reality of the place in which they live. Art strived to show the truth and the most realistic scene of the city. This process of the desire for more and more realistic depictions in art reflects the process by painting began to die out.
As the city rebuild itself in order to modernize, paintings also began to become more realistic. As the community become more technologically advanced and sophisticated, they become more interested in and dependent on available information and education. In this way, people demand the most realistic and accurate information at all times. As a result, even the art people desire to study and create follows the trend of dependency on realism. Paintings become archaic and inferior when more detailed, accurate, real works of art begin to surface, like the photo.