People in the Luxembourg garden, with the Pantheon in Paris 1871

Alfred Dehodencq painted “People in the Luxembourg garden, with the Pantheon in Paris,” using oil on canvas. We see a cross section of Parisian society leisurely occupying the public gardens. Dehodencq, who was a Romantic painter with an interest in Realism, offers a window into the daily lives of the Parisian bourgeoisie during a period of significant social and political change in France. The Luxembourg Gardens were, and remain, a site of social mixing, where class distinctions were both visible and, to some extent, blurred. The clothing of the figures indicates their social standing, even as the shared activity of strolling in the park suggests a collective experience. While seemingly a benign snapshot of everyday life, paintings such as these reflected and shaped the societal values and norms, including gender roles and class structures, of 19th-century France. Consider how these dynamics shape our experiences in public spaces today.