Sebastian Smee: ”Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism”

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting Paris in Ruins: How Love, War and Art Gave Birth to Impressionism.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• How the chaos of war and revolution in 1870s Paris shaped the birth of Impressionism.
• Why the relationship between Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot was central to the book and the Impressionist Movement.
• How Impressionism’s quick brushwork and light fixation reflect trauma, urgency and impermanence.
• Why Smee gives Berthe Morisot equal prominence and reinterprets her legacy in a male-dominated art world.
• What it means to write empathetic, narrative-driven biography while honouring archival truth.
• Why art made in crisis can speak across generations and offer hope, resistance and resilience.