Page 190 - Expanded Media & the MediaPlex

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Giovanni Boldini: Belle Époque portraits: Robert de Montesquiou (1897) + Cleo de Merode (1901) + Lawrence Alexander Harrison (1902)+ self-portrait (1894)
Rivalling John Singer Sargent as the pre-eminent society portrait painter of the fin-de-siecle, Giovanni Boldini developed a mannered painterliness based on his Italian contemporaries in the neo- Impressionist Macchiaioli school. While I was at Art School (in Portsmouth and at Hornsey during the 1960s) Boldini was condemned as a chocolate-box painter, ‘no better than William-Adolphe Bouguereau’. But I include him here (along with John Singer Sargent) because between them they capture in their portraits the quintessential characters of the Belle Époque, that period between 1880 and 1914. This period, with its superabundance of often ex-patriot aristocracy from the seemingly countless duchies and principalities of 19th century Europe, and the emerging multi-millionaires of the United States, was a rich time for portrait painters - especially those of the calibre of Singer Sargent and Boldini. Boldini had a particular talent for capturing the highly stylised body-language of the period - look at the posture of Robert de Montesquiou, and the languid elegance of the painter Lawrence Harrison - and look at the subtle changes in men’s fashion at the turn of the century - Lawrence looking very modern as early as 1902. Cleo de Merode was one of several dozen society beauties that Boldini painted - the lavish dresses and plunging décolletage a signature of his.
For me, there’s a strange nostalgic romance - and a thrilling vision of the New - about the Belle Époque, - it’s the period when modern 20th century styles in fashion began to appear - look at Robert de Montesquiou and Lawrence Harrison above, effectively wearing modern 3-piece suits. But its not just fashion - its the nostalgia for period of great innovations in art, science, technology, media - a relatively peaceful period, the latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the end-period of the Romanov dynasty, and Csarist Russian Empire, the looming threat of War, the promise of the ‘new’ - electrified cities, modern transport, flight, clean steel and glass modern cities, new understanding of the unconscious mind, a revolution in Physics signalled by Einsten and Planck. In Art the revolutions of Post Impressionism, Cubism, the Fauves, Abstraction were still to come, but the new art was already celebrated across Europe in the emergent art nouveau of Guimard, Mucha, Beardsley, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Vienna Succession and Weiner Werkstatte. Baldini and Singer Sargent echoed the concern with Style of Joris Karl Huysman, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, James McNeill Whistler and other aestheticals. Then there is the nostalgia of youth - Alain Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes (1913), the Claudine novels of Colette, the writings of Andre Gide, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean Cocteau and Guillaume Apollinaire - the early novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann...