| THE last decade of the nineteenth century is commonly called the "beautiful era" or belle �poque. For many, it was the best of times - an era when the wonders of the modern world sprang into the daily lives of people who, only fifty years earlier, had existed in almost medieval conditions.
The 1880s and 1890s saw the first rewards of industrialization in mass-produced abundance. It was the era of "more" - more bread and wine, more newspapers and books, more textiles, fashionable garments, and opportunities for modish extravagance. There were more places to go - music halls, vaudeville shows and popular entertainment at the circus, the race tracks, and the brothels. More fun to be had and more pipers to pay. In France the fin de si�cle (end of the century) brought the dawning of a new age and a new attitude toward life. It was an era when social differences dissipated and the mores, customs, and expectations of the citizenry came together. It was as social historians have characterized it, the dawning of the age of material novelties, heard in the clatter of the telegraph, the jingle of the telephone and the cacophony of the first mass-produced typewriters, experienced in the eerie feeling of ascent on the first elevator rides, the dazzling aura of electric light, and the new, democratic mobility of the bicycle. The burgeoning middle classes had a voice and a visible presence, and reaped the rewards of the economy they created. Nowhere was their presence more apparent than in the increased desire for popular entertainment. The environment exploded in dazzling images and countless, affordable spectacles - brightly rendered in posters, gaudy calendars, riveting advertisements, all catching the attention of the passerby at a glance. This era is typically associated with an extraordinary flourishing of the arts (Manet, Degas, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec) and great discoveries in science (Madame Curie, Louis Pasteur). But, as the historian Barbara Tuchman points out, these golden times were only for the priviliged few. Underneath, "doubt, fear, ferment, protest, violence" assailed the people at large. La Belle Epoque refers to a veneer of glamor at the top echleons of society. |
| La Belle Epoque |
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