# Bastille Day

- By: Maurice Prendergast (American, born Newfoundland \[now Canada\], 1858–1924)
- Date: 1892
- Medium: color monotype
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: Image: 17.4 x 13.1 cm (6 7/8 x 5 3/16 in.); Platemark: 25.5 x 20 cm (10 1/16 x 7 7/8 in.); Sheet: 30.5 x 24.8 cm (12 x 9 3/4 in.)
- Culture: America
- Credit line: Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1954.337)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1954.337/1954.337_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Maurice Prendergast began to make monotypes in the early 1890s while living in Paris, where he was influenced by Edgar Degas's use of the technique. Prendergast focused on scenes from daily life, such as this depiction of crowds filling the streets of the French capital on the country's national holiday. He used layers of blue and black ink to evoke the shadowy tones of nighttime and orbs of bright pink to suggest the artificial light of lanterns illuminating the boulevards.