one o’clock in the afternoon
And so during the third year he obstinately toiled on a work of revolt . He wanted the blazing sun , that Paris sun which , on certain days , turns the pavement to a white heat in the dazzling reflection from the house frontages . Nowhere is it hotter ; even people from burning climes mop their faces ; you would say you were in some region of Africa beneath the heavily raining glow of a sky on fire . The subject Claude chose was a corner of the Place du Carrousel , at one o'clock in the afternoon , when the sunrays fall vertically . A cab was jolting along , its driver half asleep , its horse steaming , with drooping head , vague amid the throbbing heat . The passers-by seemed , as it were , intoxicated , with the one exception of a young woman , who , rosy and gay under her parasol , walked on with an easy queen-like step , as if the fiery element were her proper sphere . But what especially rendered this picture terrible was a new interpretation of the effects of light , a very accurate decomposition of the sunrays , which ran counter to all the habits of eyesight , by emphasising blues , yellows and reds , where nobody had been accustomed to see any .