A Windy Day on the Pont des Arts

Russian-born French painter Jean Béraud was known for his depictions of the changing face of Paris and the nightlife during the Belle Époque. Béraud was born in 1848 to French parents in St. Petersburg, Russia, while his father, a sculptor, worked at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Following the death of his father, Béraud returned to Paris with his family, where he was to become a lawyer. He abandoned law school after the end of the Franco-Prussian war, and turned instead to painting. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts under Léon Bonnat, a major artist of the Third Republic. He became fascinated with modern life in Paris, particularly following the major infrastructure project of Haussmannisation named for Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the prefect chosen to lead the urban renewal project. Béraud painted the widened boulevards, new transportation systems and the intermingling of people from a wide array of social spheres. To some extent, he broke with the conventions of the Academy, and incorporated realism and satire into his paintings of 19th-century Parisian life, and loosened his brushstrokes, providing a bridge to the oncoming generation of Impressionist painters. He was close friends

Saint Petersburg, Russia