Hassam’s trips abroad, and particularly to Paris, generally allowed him to encounter unfamiliar subjects and experiment with new techniques and advanced styles by painting quickly in order to accommodate a travel schedule (Weinberg, 179). However, during his trip to Paris in 1910, Hassam became just as disillusioned with the French city as he had become with New York City and, as Weinberg writes, his disenchantment “mirrored his fading affection for New York” (Weinberg, 189). As he wrote to a friend during his trip, Paris had become
a huge Coney Island - noisy, dirty. The streets are ankle deep in advertising cards and bills and when it rains the whole thing becomes a pulp. The town is all torn up like New York. Much building going on. They out American the Americans! (qtd. Hassam, Weinberg, 189-191)Just as he had felt that the urbanization and industrialization of New York had tainted the city’s visual and personal appeal, he now saw Paris too as a “noisy, dirty” city with too much new construction taking place, tarnishing the old nature of the city (qtd. Hassam, Weinberg, 189).
However, in the same letter, Hassam also reported that he “made a 14th July [painting] from the balcony [of his hotel] here” (qtd. Hassam, Weinberg, 191). Indeed, during his stay, Hassam painted July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910, a depiction of Paris covered in flags for the Fourteenth of July, or Bastille Day, a patriotic celebration of the French revolution. Even though he had become exasperated with Paris, Hassam was still able to be inspired by the many flags hanging from Parisian buildings in patriotic display. In the painting, Hassam presents the rue Daunou, a short street that connected the boulevard des Capucines and the avenue de l’Opéra, draped with the flags of France and of other nations (Weinberg, 191).
Although his painting had antecedents in his own work since Hassam had done watercolor studies and one small oil painting of the Bastille Day celebrations in the 1880s, July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 is considered by many critics, including Ulrich Hiesinger, to be the “forerunner…of his famous series of flag paintings” as it is Hassam’s first exploration the flag as a patriotic symbol (Hiesinger, 142). Indeed, just as in his later flag series in New York, the flags here in Paris may have also served to frame Hassam’s vision of the city and so, in the painting, the flags almost seem secondary to the buildings and are used to highlight the Parisian edifices. The buildings, with their impressive stone front gilded façades and green rooftop balconies, take up most of the canvas and tower above the flags, while the brightly colored flags that hang on the right side of the painting draw also attention to the storefronts and sidewalk cafés. So, when Hassam had become disillusioned with New York and then saw the hanging flags of the Preparedness Day parade, he might have hearkened back to his experience in Paris during Bastille Day and used the flags to inspire him yet again.
Image
Childe Hassam. July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910. 1910. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.