[Léon Lhermitte ‘Les Halles’ 1895 – my photograph]
Léon Lhermitte ‘Les Halles’ from 1895 is an example of a superbly cinematic painting. Painted well after the establishment of photography, it’s an astonishing accomplishment of realism and the drama of everyday life. You can really revel in Lhermitte’s ebullient depiction of the huge Paris fruit and vegetable market (this scene is in the section of Le Carreau) – which is now replaced by a shopping centre that still bears the name Les Halles.
This painting – which is absolutely vast – 404 x 635 cm – scotches the idea that ‘photography replaced painting’ – because at the time there was no camera available that could replicate such a scene with so much depth and motion.
1895 is also as we all know, the ‘birthdate’ of cinema as we know it, the year the Lumieres made their first screening. yet it would take half a century for the movie camera to capture a scene like this.
What L’Hermitte teaches us, though, is how to to look at the scene. Not just to sieze the camera and film it, but to really look at what is going on, what is doing what and why. What does your eye ‘grab’ onto?
[bigger version from Wikipedia]
This picture is at the Petit Palais in Paris, and you need at least 30 minutes just to look at it alone. In its vibrance, detail and combination of realism and imagination, it is really a movie!
[the glorious Petit Palais, where you can spend a wonderful day if you’re so inclined]
As well as Les Halles, L’Hermitte made a number of excellent paintings of working people. His Glaneuses, below, might not be as well known or as atmospheric as Millet’s depiction of the common activity of gleaning, but it has a strength and power of its own.
[Glaneuses, Philadelpha Museum of Art, from Wikipedia]
THE ART TRAVELLER 
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