Few eras in history are more romantic and alluring than La Belle Époque, the period from 1871 to1914 when France, and other European states, experienced newfound peace and stability, exciting scientific discoveries and one of the greatest artistic flowerings the world has ever known. But amid this thrilling explosion of art, culture and technology, the seeds were also planted for a new political order, with old empires unraveling and the looming spectre of war. After dazzling Curious Minds audiences with his series on the cultural and political history of the 20th Century (The Age of Upheaval, The 1960s: From Berkeley to Berlin), Dr. Peter Harris returns to guide us through the social and artistic innovations that shaped Europe’s cultural hotbeds at the turn of the century, inspiring movements, leaders and ideas that would define the next hundred years.
Led by Dr. Peter Harris, the former Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science of the University of Toronto. He previously helmed the popular Curious Minds series The Age of Upheaval: The 1920s and 30s in Paris, Berlin and New York; The 1960s: From Berkeley to Berlin; and Designing the World: The Global Starchitects.
The six lectures in this series will all be available to stream until May 31. You can access each lecture at your leisure by clicking on links in your confirmation email, or by visiting your My Shows page.
Lecture 1: La Belle Époque, Part I
La Belle Époque conjures a rich palette of painterly images. Among the most famous of these are the paintings and posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and the rich art nouveau posters of Alphonse Mucha. But vying for equal attention are the shimmering paintings of other French artists who flocked to Paris in this era, especially the Impressionists – now highly regarded, but at the time highly contentious.
Lecture 2: La Belle Époque, Part II
Auguste Rodin, Marie Curie, The Eiffel Tower, the first Cinema - what underlies this extraordinary flowering in the fine arts, architecture, science, technology, in France? We look at the violent birth of the country’s “Third Republic”, and the boomtimes that followed—a period whose dazzling economic, social and cultural landscape developments reached their fullest expression at the World Fairs of 1889 and 1900.
Lecture 3: Paris as European Cultural Magnet
It wasn’t just French artists who were drawn to The City of Light. Chagall and Bakst from Russia, Van Gogh and Mondrian from Holland, Picasso from Spain, Brâncusi from Rumania—Paris attracted artists from all across Europe and abroad, and inspired them to scale new creative heights.
Lecture 4: Imperial Germany
Life in Imperial Berlin couldn’t begin to match the glamour of Paris. But there were signs of dissent within the stifling conformity, and secessionist movements among artists in both Berlin and Munich challenged the sterile academic tenets of the time. Elsewhere in Germany, German Expressionists simply threw out the rules. In Bavaria, the bizarre castles of Ludwig II created their own fantasy kingdom.
Lecture 5: The Hapsburgs
In Austro-Hungary, the 500-year old Hapsburg dynasty, with its ossified court life, was showing signs of impending collapse. Yet there was a vibrant cultural life emerging in cultural hotspots like Vienna, home to the maverick Gustav Klimt, and Prague, where the writer Franz Kafka was preparing to shock the world with his bizarre and surreal imagery.
Lecture 6: The Kings Depart….
The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 set off a catastrophic World War that swept away the old empires—Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire. But after the War ended in 1918, the redrawn mapping of Europe unleashed national movements and rivalries that would define much of the century ahead.
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