One of the recurring themes of “Parisian Views” is the importance of the crowd. We see the chaotic beauty of the crowds displayed in the paintings of Pissarro or Renoir, and we read about them in the poems of Baudelaire or the stories of Balzac. In Baudelaire’s prose poem, “Crowds,” he writes, “He who doesn’t know how to populate his solitude doesn’t know how to be alone in a bustling crowd either.” With this statement, Baudelaire suggests that there is a certain balance required when standing in the crowd. You must find your place within the larger makeup of the world around you, yet at the same time not become lost in the crowd and thus lost from your own sense of self. While there are times that collectivism and being a part of the crowd is thrilling, if you find yourself too reliant on the crowds for your own identity, when you find yourself alone, you might you might struggle to feel comfortable in their absence.

This photograph evokes Baudelaire for me. The absence of a crowd at night on Yeshiva University’s Wilf Campus provides one with the opportunity to “populate one’s own solitude.” The nighttime provides you with the chance to look around and see the world— in this case the Wilf Campus—in a way that you would not be able to when everyone else is around. There is a blanket of serenity during these late hours when fewer cars drive down the streets and students have retired to their rooms. You could just stand in the middle of the street and see the stretch of road and lines of lights extend as far as the eye can see. The contrast between the emptiness of the sky and the bright colors under the streetlamps serves as a reminder to maintain this grounded attitude. While the space above is incredibly vast, the true color and potential is not found there. Rather we discover it by going out into the world. If this picture would be juxtaposed to one that displays the daytime liveliness of the campus, I think that it would be a perfect companion to Baudelaire’s poem. In our new lifestyles of social distancing, Baudelaire’s words of populating one’s solitude continue to have a relevance for us all, as people all over the world are creating new ways to both be a part of the crowd, even if it means being far apart from one another.