Gezicht in een straat met voetgangers en een wagen 1773 - 1843

Georges Michel made this graphite drawing of a street scene with pedestrians and a wagon at some point between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Michel was working in a revolutionary France that, despite its egalitarian rhetoric, still relied on distinctly hierarchical social structures. Images like this, focusing on the day-to-day lives of common people, offered a visual counterpoint to the dominant artistic focus on historical and mythological subjects. We can see the influences of the Dutch Golden Age and the Barbizon School in Michel's artistic focus and painterly style, but also the rise of Realism as an artistic movement. To understand Michel's work more fully, we can look to records of the economic conditions of the time, the popular imagery of the period, and the changing attitudes towards the representation of ordinary life. By examining these contexts, we can better understand the public role of this kind of art and the social conditions that shaped its production.