Toulouse Lautrec is one of my favorite artists. It would be impossible for me to choose his best pieces, but here are two stand outs. The colors represent that incredible period of creativity during the Belle Epoch in Paris that ended just before World War I.
The whole era between roughly 1890 and 1914 spurred the likes of Claude Debussy, Eduoard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Ravel, Eric Satie, Gabriel Faure, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Maurice Denis, Matisse, Gaugin and a young Picasso. It was an embarrassment of musical, literary and artistic riches with buxom ladies dancing in the salons and Proust reminiscing about things past. It was a showcase of peaceful and prosperous times throughout Europe, and despite poverty in the slums, it was the creative heyday that paved the way for the Post-Modernist movement, and a new generation of artists and writers to populate the cafes.
It has been almost 100 years since the Belle Epoch period ended and a much darker time in European history began. Luckily, the museums and the architecture and cafes of Paris keep the spirit of its past alive. Which is a good thing, considering its past is the reason its still contains so much magic.
