Paris in Ruins: Love, War and the Birth of Impressionism

Winter of 1870. Paris - surrounded by an enemy army, soon to be engulfed by the flames of civil war. In the streets, people die from typhus and hunger, and the only means of communication with the outside world are balloons and carrier pigeons...

Smi portrays the era through the eyes of artists who refused to give in, both in life and in art. In besieged Paris, Manet, Morisot, and Degas continued to paint, Renoir and Bazille fought, while Monet and Pissarro fled. But upon their return, they all acutely felt the fragility of existence - and transferred this into their art. The trauma of the 'Turbulent Year' made artists reject heroic pathos and turn their gaze towards light, air, and the fleeting beauty of everyday life.

At the center of the narrative is the love and friendship story of Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot, the first female Impressionist. Smi returns her place at the origin of the movement, tracing their complex dialogue with Manet and mutual influence.

"Paris in Ruins" is a chronicle of Impressionism, a poignant tale of how the blockade and chaos transformed art and how genius is born from catastrophe. The other side of great art. Blood on the barricades. This is a text about how the old world dies. And about how from its ashes a new beauty is born - free, daring, immortal.