Hubert Robert's The Monuments of Paris

We are standing in front of the Monuments of Paris by Hubert Robert, a really exceptional loan which is now on view in the National Gallery of Canada up to April 30th. This picture was exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1789, which opened just a couple of weeks after the storming of the Bastille, so a real turning point in the history of France. What makes this picture so exceptional, and one of the very best pictures by Hubert Robert, and certainly one of the absolute masterpieces of the French school in the 18th century, is that it's an outdoor museum, it's dealing with heritage, it's dealing with the permanency of a civilization, so in this imaginary setting you can see seven different monuments placed here as works of art, but in a complete imaginary setting, bringing works together, structures together, which are spread out in the whole city on the left-hand side and on the right-hand side of the Louvre. So the setting is imaginary as the proportions are different. The will of Hubert Robert was obviously to bring together works in order to present them like a collection in an outdoor museum. And it is, in fact, in a way, retrospectively, a final tribute to the power of the monarchy because the monuments featured in this outdoor museum were, with one exception, all commissioned by a monarch. It shows Paris as an archaeological site. You see that monuments are, in a way, emerging from a null. That has very much to do with one of the deep ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, that civilization and art has to be a product, a natural product of nature. So it's a place of aesthetical delectation, as we can see here, but it's also a place of work because it's about longevity of civilization. So people are continuing to build, so it's a museum, it's a place of work, but it's also a place which hosts daily life. As we can see, the Fountain of the Innocents is really used as a fountain. It wasn't the case in the 18th century, and it wasn't the case, it's not still the case today. And as you see, the Porte Saint-Denis, which reminds us a triumphal arc of the Forum Romanum and which commemorates a victory with the 14th of the Campaign of the Reign, this Porte Saint-Denis is really used as a city door, as we can see with this Sainte-Eulale carriage. So it's a picture which is a museum, a place of work, and a place which hosts daily life. And art and life shouldn't be separated. It's one of the deep ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, and I think it's something we should remember today.