Promenade à Rouen: Cours Boieldieu Possibly 1884 - 1896

Camille Pissarro made this etching, *Promenade à Rouen: Cours Boieldieu*, in France, likely in the late 1880s or early 1890s. It presents a seemingly ordinary urban scene: a small group of figures and a dog by the waterside. But Pissarro, deeply influenced by anarchist thought, often looked at the unvarnished realities of modern life. The industrial port of Rouen, far from the Parisian art world, might have appealed to his anti-establishment sensibilities. He may have seen beauty in the everyday rather than in idealized scenes. The etching medium itself, less formal than painting, could have been Pissarro’s way of democratizing art, making it more accessible to a wider audience. To understand this image better, we could look at the history of Rouen’s port and the social conditions of its workers during this period. We might also research the rise of anarchist ideas among artists in France. The meaning of art is always embedded in such contexts.