La Construction du Sacré-Coeur 

Maximilien Luce created "La Construction du Sacré-Coeur" using oil on canvas with visible brushstrokes. The structure of the scaffolding dominates the composition, juxtaposed against the rising basilica and urban sprawl. Luce’s pointillist technique, with its dabs of color, captures the transient effects of light and atmosphere. The vibrant, almost clashing, colors and industrial subject matter reflect the artist’s anarchist sympathies. The composition destabilizes traditional notions of the sacred by depicting its construction as a purely material and labor-intensive process. This disrupts fixed meanings, questioning the values attached to religious monuments. The scaffolding, depicted with a formal, almost structuralist approach, underscores the artwork’s challenge to established hierarchies. The emphasis on materiality and construction functions as a discourse on modernity, labor, and the changing urban landscape, inviting ongoing interpretation and re-interpretation.