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Chapter 18 – Trains in Time

“Why don’t you just drink out of the bottle?” Lucien called after him.

Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec_by_Giovanni_Boldini

“Please, monsieur, what am I, a barbarian?”

Portrait of Heni de Toulouse-Lautrec – Giovanni Boldini-1889

“Are you secretly aroused by the nuns at school?” asked Henri.

paris-street-scene.jpg!HalfHD childehassam

Paris Street Scene – Childe Hassam – 1889

A couple of reasons I included this picture, besides it had a nun in it. First is just a glimpse of one of the horse-drawn double-decker omnibuses to the left. The other is that it is painted by one of the few American Impressionists, Childe Hassam. Hassam traveled to Paris and was painting there around the time of the story. I don’t think this is actually a street scene, to be honest. It looks more like it’s taking place in one of the parks, either Jardin du Luxembourg, or near the Tullaries, which is next to the Louvre and runs all the way to the Champs Elysées. (You can tell by the white macadam, which still paves the parks today.) You can see a lot of Hassam’s work at The Gallery of American Art in Washington, D.C. (Adjacent the National Portrait Gallery).

“It is a train station. It’s Gare Saint-Lazare. I have been carrying three easels and a paint box for Monsieur Monet

Pissarro _ cour-du-havre-gare-st-lazare-1893

Coúr du Havre Gare St. Lazare (Outside Gare St. Lazare)- Camille Pissarro – 1893

Monet wore a velvet jacket and a silk waistcoat bound with a gold watch chain; lace cuffs draped his wrists; a black silk cravat was tied at his throat, pinned with a pearl stickpin—every inch the gentleman, dandy, and master of his universe.

Claude Monet – Pierre-August Renoir

“I wish to paint the steam and smoke, the fury of the engines preparing to depart. I will paint fog, you see, capture on canvas that which has never been captured.”