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What was the view of Paris from Montmartre like in the 1870's and 1880's?
The view of Paris from Montmartre is one of the most breathtaking sights in the city -- a sea of slate rooftops and white buildings, scattered with recognizable landmarks, green spaces and other details like islands among its waves. But how long has it looked like this? Last weekend, a friend from the US was standing with me at the top of Montmartre. “What was the view like when Van Gogh was here?” he asked. “Was it mostly fields?” I told him that it wasn’t - Paris has been a fairly large city for centuries and by the 1880’s, when Vincent Van Gogh was living in Montmartre, it was a huge sprawl of buildings, factories, avenues, the Seine, and several large parks. The view of Paris from Montmartre’s heights would at that time have been roughly the same as it is today. As someone who loves Paris deeply, and has for most of her life, the appearance of the city during my favorite era of its history seems like a given. But I started to wonder what visual proof might exist to show s