Paris 8th arrondissement, in the evening series — 7 Paintings by Arnaud Quercy

The evening series of 72 Facets of Paris. These seven facets fall in the warm, slow turn of the waltz between twenty to eight and twenty to ten, across the grandest of arrondissements — the 8th of the Champs-Élysées, avenue Montaigne and the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, of boulevard Haussmann and the Madeleine. It is the hour when the avenues light up and the dance, having reached its widest, most opulent stretch, begins to lean toward its close: the last facets draw down toward Saint-Lazare and the temple of the Madeleine, night falling, the cycle quietly circling back to its prelude.

Their harmonies are the rich, dusk-coloured chords of the cycle — dominant sevenths (B♭7, F7, G♭7), the lush major ninth (D♭maj9), the minor sevenths (E♭−7, F−7) and a single half-diminished (C−7♭5) that carries the evening's first shadow. Translated through the artist's ideamorphic method, these harmonies bloom into teal and lavender, ochre and red-orange, blue discs and green circles set against grey and black — façade-lit colour, neither the full glare of day nor the near-black of the small hours, but the particular warmth of Paris at nightfall.

The seven places trace the avenue at dusk. From G♭7 the cafés of the Champs-Élysées open the series at twenty to eight — a grey arc and yellow-green, a blue disc and teal, the avenue's evening buzz; D♭maj9 answers at eight on avenue Montaigne, teal and a blue square, white, a red-orange arc edged in black, luxury façades at nightfall. G♭7 returns at twenty past eight for the boutiques of the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, teal and a green circle, purple and yellow-olive, magenta and blue across lit windows; then D♭maj9 stretches the long night façades of boulevard Haussmann at twenty to nine, blue and grey, a red-orange block, a white square over teal. At nine, F−7 and B♭7 draw the discreet Village Royal off rue Royale into lavender and a grey arc, red and ochre, purple and blue — restaurants at the dinner hour. The dance turns toward its close: E♭−7 finds the quiet rue de Naples in the quartier de l'Europe at twenty past nine, blue and purple, lavender and a green half-disc, a grey circle below, the hushed streets near Saint-Lazare; and at twenty to ten C−7♭5 with F7 lights the Madeleine and its restaurants — the Greek temple aglow, a grey arc, blue and green, ochre and orange, purple against black, public stone and evening tables.

Seen together, the seven compose the cycle's warmest and most opulent field — a band of teal, lavender, ochre and red-orange over grey and black, the avenues caught at the exact hour of their lighting. It is evening Paris at its grandest, already turning toward the dark from which the prelude rose. Like the full cycle of seventy-two, these seven facets were commissioned together and now belong to a single Paris collection.