Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year "[Reveals] how the brilliance of Impressionism emerged from a backdrop of tragedy and violence.” —Ross King, author of Mad Enchantment The Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic’s gripping account of the “Terrible Year” in Paris and its monumental impact on the rise of Impressionism. From the summer of 1870 to the spring of 1871, famously dubbed the “Terrible Year” by Victor Hugo, Paris and its people were besieged, starved, and forced into surrender by Germans—then imperiled again as radical republicans established a breakaway Commune, ultimately crushed by the French Army after bloody street battles and the burning of central Paris. As renowned art critic Sebastian Smee shows, it was against the backdrop of these tumultuous times that the Impressionist movement was born—in response to violence, civil war, and political intrigue. In stirring and exceptionally vivid prose, Smee tells the story of those dramatic