The Pont des Arts, Paris

Bonington's The Pont des Arts, Paris of 1826 depicts the cast-iron pedestrian bridge over the Seine linking the Louvre to the Institut de France, a then-modern structure that Bonington rendered with the atmospheric sensitivity he brought to all his Parisian subjects. The bridge's open ironwork contrasted with the classical stone facades on either bank, and Bonington's treatment captures the specific quality of Parisian river light — pearlescent, reflective, constantly changing — that made the Seine his most productive landscape subject.

Bonington renders the Parisian architecture and the shimmering river with extraordinary atmospheric luminosity. The confident, spontaneous brushwork and the brilliant rendering of sunlight on stone and water demonstrate his revolutionary approach to urban landscape painting.