Paris vu de Montmartre

Paris vu de Montmartre was painted in 1887, among Luce's earliest works in the Neo-Impressionist manner, and is now held by the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. Montmartre, still semi-rural and working-class in the 1880s before its commercialization as an artists' district, offered a panoramic view over the rooftops of the city that appealed to painters seeking both picturesque landscape and urban social observation simultaneously. Luce had been born in the 13th arrondissement and was deeply connected to Parisian working-class life, and his elevated viewpoint here takes in the density and scale of the city with a social as well as aesthetic interest. By 1887, Luce had encountered Seurat's Grande Jatte at the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition of 1886 and had been converted to divisionism. This panoramic view of Paris from above was an ambitious early test of the new technique's capacity to handle a complex, large-scale urban landscape.

The early divisionist technique is carefully applied across the complex panoramic subject, with rooftops, streets, and distant buildings all rendered in separated colour touches. The palette uses blues, greys, ochres, and warm rose tones to differentiate the Parisian cityscape across different planes. The sky above receives the most freely handled passages.