Louis Anquetin
This painting shows a fleeting moment on the Pont des Saints-Pères in Paris—now replaced by the Pont du Carrousel—like a vivid snapshot in time. It is a very weird composition; at first, I didn't know what was happening here! A powerful gust of wind whips through the scene, tossing the manes of the horses pulling an omnibus, nearly carrying off one woman’s hat and lifting the coat of another, whose fur boa swirls dramatically in the air. The cool, muted tones convey the crispness of an autumn day.
Louis Anquetin accentuates the force of the wind through elegant, arabesque curves that seem to animate the composition. His use of bold, decorative contours to define color fields—a stylistic hallmark that would later influence Émile Bernard, Paul Gauguin, and the Nabis—was dubbed Cloisonnism by poet Édouard Dujardin. The term refers to the medieval enameling technique cloisonné, in which fine metal bands separate compartments of color.
Anquetin’s flattened, graphic treatment of the surface, the dynamic cropping, and the layering of forms across parallel planes all reveal the impact of Japanese woodblock prints on his work. The subject itself—figures caught in wind and rain—echoes a favorite motif in Japanese art.
P.S. Anquetin’s cloisonnist style and his influence on Gauguin, the Nabis, and others are covered in our online course, Post-Impressionism 101. It explores how artists moved beyond Impressionism and incorporated elements like bold outlines, symbolic content, and flattened space—exactly what’s happening in this painting.
P.P.S. The Japanese influence wasn't something uncommon. Learn more about Japonisme—Western fever for Japanese art!