Brilliant_ The Evolution of Artificial Light - Jane Brox [30]
Under gaslight, the true stars started to fade away. "Paris will be very beautiful in autumn," wrote Vincent van Gogh from Arles in 1888 in a letter to his brother, Theo. "The town here is nothing, at night everything is black. I think that plenty of gas, which is after all yellow and orange, heightens the blue, because at night the sky here looks to me—and it's very odd— blacker than Paris. And if I ever see Paris again, I shall try to paint some of the effects of gaslight on the boulevard." Van Gogh seems to be referring to what might be sky glow, that aspect of light pollution in which the night sky appears purplish in the glare of multitudinous lights.
By mid-century, the long view of a gaslit city could appear simply enchanting. "The whole of Paris is studded with golden dots," a guidebook to the city observed, "as closely as a velvet gown with golden glitter. Soon they wink and twinkle everywhere, and you cannot imagine anything more beautiful, and yet the most beautiful is still to come. Out of the dots emerge lines, and from the lines figures, spark lining up with spark, and as far as the eye can see are endless avenues of light." A closer look, however, often told other stories, for the allure of an illuminated city at night is much more than a matter of streetlights alone, which are simply the strict lines of civil order and, by themselves, markedly utilitarian whether gas or oil. A city night thrives in myriad lights—shop windows, signs, theater entrances, taverns, homes—and in the gaslit neighborhoods, the brightness of all of the illuminated places increased exponentially, which in turn fed the vitality of the streets. People who lived in gaslit neighborhoods grew accustomed to the brightness and often felt safer in their larger illumination. Those districts still dependent on feeble, messy oil lamps—most often working-class and poor neighborhoods—were another country now, a place into which the well-to-do might be more reluctant to venture, as if the gloominess of oil lamps marked the edges of their territory.
By the gaslight era, too, a rising middle class had more leisure time in the evening and more money to spend. The evening became the consumer's hour, with the advent of window-shopping as a pastime. These were the hours of glass, which had been clarifying ever since the sixteenth century, when small panes of it first began to replace muslin and oilpaper in windows. Now the glass in shop windows—no longer composed of small panes—was one large plate, which gaslight, unlike oil lamps and candles, suffused with light, illuminating the still lifes within. Steady and mute, it fell upon sequined dresses, wool coats, and silk ties; on watches and necklaces perched on folds of velvet; on fabrics, perfumes, soaps, silver candlesticks, Chinese porcelain, Indian spices, cheeses, and meats.
Whereas plate glass gave a view into shop interiors, in noisy cafés light seemed to ramify endlessly off glass chandeliers, bottles of whiskey and absinthe, stemware and tumblers. Mirrors magnified that light even further. "During the day, often sober; in the evening, more buoyant when the gas flames glow," wrote Karl Gutzkow of Paris. "The art of the dazzling illusion is here developed to perfection. The most commonplace tavern is dedicated to deceiving the eye. Through mirrors extending along walls, and reflecting