Numerous times rebuilt, the great
race meetings at Longchamp return
naturally to mind in heavy polit-
ical weather, having been bombed
in the siege of '70 and foully
besmirched with swastikas in the
there before the Communards, Bon-
nard a generation after; and to
conceive of Longchamp with eyes
not steeped in Impressionism is
less an indecency than a gesture
of inexperience with its meaning.
Something about a sport such as
this is never vulnerable to lit-
erality's intrusion, mortal as
its exemplars are, even somewhat
fickle in their followings. Tiger
Woods is competing in Paris this
week, numerous times rebuilt, in
a frame held together by the same
single breath. What else is on?
Pierre Bonnard
At the Races, Longchamp
Private collection
1894
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