When I look at this photograph that I made recently in Paris, I wonder how much it represents a typical street scene and how much it reflects the way that I see things?  Powerful images reveal both the subject and the artist.

While in Paris I had the good fortune to visit the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Marmottan Monet and see paintings by Rembrandt, Cézanne, Matisse, Renoir, Rousseau, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, van Gogh, Monet and Picasso as well as by many lesser-known equally talented artists. It is amazing to see the original paintings. One can move in close and see the three-dimensional effect of the brush strokes; or step back and feel the power of the painting in its original, often very large, size.

Touring the collections of these vast museums reveals the influence upon the artist of the social, political and religious context of the times. To what degree are the photographs that we are creating today as much a product of our times as of ourselves? One’s own culture is invisible and invasive.

As the times changed, the overall “style” of artists changed. So for example the Impressionist Movement evolved, then blossomed, then was replaced. Many of these artists knew each other, indeed they often painted in the same locations. While they may have shared similar views about art, each had a personal style within the generic style of the time.

Different viewers prefer the work of different artists. Does that make one style better than another? Not at all. All of the art in these galleries is powerful.

What counts is what the artist saw and what they had to say about it and how they interpreted light, line, colour and space to do that.

posted by Ted Nodwell