Bastille Day Through Five French Paintings

Bastille Day, officially Fête nationale or 14 Juillet, commemorates the start of the French Revolution in 1789. Five paintings offer distinct perspectives on the holiday. Claude Monet's "Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of 30 June 1878" (Musée d'Orsay) is often mistaken for a Bastille Day scene, but it actually depicts a festival on June 30, 1878, celebrating France's recovery from the Franco-Prussian War. Alfred-Philippe Roll's "Bastille Day, 1880, Inauguration of the Monument to the Republic" (Petit Palais) was commissioned by the government to document the first official Bastille Day in 1880, featuring a plaster model of Léopold Morice's Statue of the Republic. American painter Childe Hassam's "Bastille Day, Boulevard Rochechouart, Paris, 1889" (private collection, Christie's) shows the patriotic tricolor against brown street scenes. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "At the Bastille (Jeanne Wenz)" (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) depicts a waitress at the famous La Bastille bar, inspired by a song by Aristide Bruant. Gérard Fromanger's "Bastille Flux" (2007, WikiArt) reflects on the Bastille fortress, built in the 14th century, which symbolized royal authority and was stormed on July 14, 1789, with only seven inmates inside.