Belle Époque  

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The Belle Époque, meaning "the pretty era" in the French language, was an era in France's history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I.

Occurring at the midpoint of the Third Republic, the Belle Époque was considered a golden time of beauty, innovation, and peace between France and its European neighbors. New inventions made life easier at all social levels, the cultural scene thrived, cabaret, cancan, and the cinema were born, and art took new forms with Impressionism and Art Nouveau. Art and architecture in the style of this era in other nations is also sometimes called "Belle Époque" style.

While art and innovation flourished, this time period also saw the rise of working-class militancy and organized socialist movements. These conflicts as well as various political scandals began to polarize the country between the "Left" and the "Right." Regardless, this time period is remembered in France as a golden time of the past that was shattered by the outbreak of World War I. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_%C9poque [Sept 2004]

Succès de scandale

The term succès de scandale was coined during the Belle Époque.

Art and literature

The arts underwent a radical transformation during the decades before World War I, and new artistic forms associated with cultural modernity emerged.

Impressionism, which had been considered the artistic avant-garde in the 1860s, gained widespread acceptance. In the early 20th century Expressionism became new avant-garde. The visual art style known as Art Nouveau (called Jugendstil in central Europe), characterized by its curvilinear forms, become prominent and dominated design throughout much of Europe. Highly successful branches of this style, with notable regional variations, took root in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Austria (the Vienna Secession), Hungary, Bohemia, and Latvia. It soon spread around the world, including Mexico and the United States. It is sometimes called Belle Époque style.

Theater adopted new modern forms, including Expressionism, and many playwrights wrote plays that shocked contemporary audiences either with their frank depictions of everyday life and sexuality or with unusual artistic elements. Cabaret theater also become popular. Musically, the Belle Époque was characterized by salon music. This was not considered "serious" music but, rather, short pieces considered accessible to the audience. In addition to pieces for piano solo or violin and piano, the Belle Époque was famous for its large repertory of songs (mélodies, romanze, etc.). The Italians were the greatest proponents of this type of song, its greatest champion being Francesco Paolo Tosti. Though Tosti's songs never fully left the repertoire, salon music generally fell into a period of obscurity. Even as encores, singers were afraid to sing them at "serious" recitals. In that period, waltzes also flourished. Operettas were also at the peak of their popularity, with composers such as Johann Strauss, Emmerich Kalman, and Franz Lehar. It was during this era that the motion pictures were born, though these did not become common until after World War I.

European literature underwent a major transformation in the Belle Époque. Literary realism and naturalism achieved new heights. Among the most famous realist or naturalist authors are Theodor Fontane, Guy de Maupassant, and Émile Zola. Realism gradually gave way to modernism, which emerged in the 1890s and came to dominate European literature in the Belle Époque's final years and throughout the interwar years. Among the most prominent European modernist authors are Andrei Bely, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Marcel Proust, Arthur Schnitzler, Robert Walser, and W. B. Yeats. [1] [Apr 2007]

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France - belle - beauty - fin de siècle