The Pont Neuf 1849 - 1850

Editor: So, this is Johan Barthold Jongkind's "The Pont Neuf," painted around 1849 to 1850, using oil paints, presumably en plein-air. It strikes me as less focused on ideal beauty and more concerned with capturing the daily grind of urban life, almost a document of the era. What are your initial thoughts? Curator: Considering Jongkind's commitment to painting outdoors, let's think about how the very act of *making* shaped the work. This wasn't about lofty allegory but grappling with the materials – the quick drying oils, the constraints of light, the physical act of lugging an easel around a bustling cityscape. What kind of labor is depicted along the Seine? How do those activities connect, materially and socially, to the construction of the Pont Neuf itself? Editor: I hadn’t considered the link between the bridge and the activity around it so explicitly. Now I see how the work becomes an artifact of urban labor and economic exchange. How do the stylistic features play into that idea? Curator: Exactly! Jongkind's brushstrokes, the visible materiality of the paint, they resist the illusionism of academic painting. It acknowledges its own production. How does the atmospheric perspective serve not to create depth, but instead to dissolve forms, implicating this modern city with the changes taking place around it? Editor: So, rather than trying to mask the process, he almost highlights it. It’s about showing the reality of a city being built and lived in, rather than some idealized version of it. The lack of polish and his plein air choices make me think about immediacy as a commentary of a fast developing city and society. Curator: Precisely! The Pont Neuf becomes a symbol of its time – built not only of stone and steel, but of the labor, the materials, and even the fleeting atmospheric conditions Jongkind painstakingly documented. A great look at process and labor. Editor: I definitely see the painting in a different, much richer light now! Thinking about the labour and materials depicted is fascinating. Curator: Yes, and perhaps next time we can discuss the role of watercolor!