Having visited museums dedicated to all sorts of artists and authors, Paris shaped the lives of so so so many critical thinkers and producers throughout the last several hundred years. James Baldwin, Picasso, you name it and they probably went and lived there for a while.
Paris helped shaping almost every artist in Europe at that time :)
Yes, like Florence in the Renaissance. What a time to live in that city! (any of them).
hm "what is art in the face of capitalism" seems a bit of a narrow characterization of Joyce's project. I might expand that to include questions like what is a human being and what is god.