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Paris on the Eve: 1900-1914
A portrait of life and culture in Paris from 1900-1914 includes profiles of such influential figures as Proust, Debussy, Picasso, Claudel, Matisse, and Diaghilev
- GenresHistory
484 pages, Hardcover
First published May 4, 1989
About the author
Vincent Cronin
60 books40 followersVincent Archibald Patrick Cronin FRSL (24 May 1924 – 25 January 2011) was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best known for his biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon, as well as for his books on the Renaissance.
Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, to Scottish doctor and novelist, A. J. Cronin, and May Gibson, but moved to London at the age of two. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Harvard University, the Sorbonne, and Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated with honours in 1947, earning a degree in Literae Humaniores. During the Second World War, he served as a lieutenant in the British Army.
In 1949, he married Chantal de Rolland, and they had five children. The Cronins were long-time residents of London, Marbella, and Dragey, in Avranches, Normandy, where they lived at the Manoir de Brion.
Cronin was a recipient of the Richard Hillary Award, the W.H. Heinemann Award (1955), and the Rockefeller Foundation Award (1958). He also contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes, was the first General Editor of the Companion Guides series, and was on the Council of the Royal Society of Literature.
He died at his home in Marbella on 25 January 2011.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent...
Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, to Scottish doctor and novelist, A. J. Cronin, and May Gibson, but moved to London at the age of two. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Harvard University, the Sorbonne, and Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated with honours in 1947, earning a degree in Literae Humaniores. During the Second World War, he served as a lieutenant in the British Army.
In 1949, he married Chantal de Rolland, and they had five children. The Cronins were long-time residents of London, Marbella, and Dragey, in Avranches, Normandy, where they lived at the Manoir de Brion.
Cronin was a recipient of the Richard Hillary Award, the W.H. Heinemann Award (1955), and the Rockefeller Foundation Award (1958). He also contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes, was the first General Editor of the Companion Guides series, and was on the Council of the Royal Society of Literature.
He died at his home in Marbella on 25 January 2011.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 24, 2022
Paris on the Eve, 1900-1914
Vincent Cronin. St. Martin's Press (484pp) ISBN 978-0-312-04876-1
In pre-WW I Paris, Picasso, Debussy, Gide, Proust, Henri Bergson and Pierre and Marie Curie were among the creative minds who helped forge the modern world view of a subjective, fluid reality. Cronin's achievement in this scintillating, highly enjoyable social and cultural history is to demonstrate how the various endeavours of these, and other ground breakers were interrelated. France's adaptation to unless France really developed idea the motor car changed Proust's way of life. A new subjectivism, spurred by Bergson's spiritual philosophy, made possible Debussy's exploration of musical nuance, Picasso and Braque's invention of Cubism, and poet Charles Peguy's vision of a socialist utopia. Mingling gossip, biography and astute commentary, this chronicle tracks Diaghilev, Colette, Matisse, and a host of others.
Through anecdotes and capsule biographies of painters, writers, musicians, scientists, and intellectuals, Cronin accounts for that dazzling but doomed culture of Paris during the ``Belle Epoque,'' the period between the Great Exhibition of 1900 and WWI. Believing that artists and intellectuals had immense impact on the ``bourgeois civilization'' that was Paris, Cronin re- creates the ``paradigm for civilized living'' from the philosophy of Boutroux, Blondel, and especially Bergson; from the writings of Gide, Proust, Claudel, Peguy; from the art of Picasso, Matisse (who ``captured the colour and joy of life''), Dufy, Utrillo, Modigliani; from the music of Debussy (``his finer gradations of feelings''), the theatre of Sarah Bernhardt (``gently mannered comedy''), the science of the Curies and Poincoire, and all the arts associated with and stimulated by Diaghilev and the Russian ballet. Chapters on politics, women (their roles and couturiers), interior design, and technology-especially the French success with cinematography, motorcars, and airplanes-all contribute to a sense of prosperity, confidence, optimism, political liberality, the special quality of esprit Cronin defines as intellectual and spiritual confidence. In a perceptive synthesis of science and art, he notes that ``The Fall...has been reversed by the Flight.'' And while his attempt to identify the contributions of some thinkers is occasionally strained, it is always interesting, especially on Gide's spirituality and Claudel's ``redemptive suffering.'' Still: an engrossingly vivid, immediate, and informed attempt to find a unified view of a culture that was made up of eccentrics, idiosyncrasy, diversity, and alienation.
Vincent Cronin. St. Martin's Press (484pp) ISBN 978-0-312-04876-1
In pre-WW I Paris, Picasso, Debussy, Gide, Proust, Henri Bergson and Pierre and Marie Curie were among the creative minds who helped forge the modern world view of a subjective, fluid reality. Cronin's achievement in this scintillating, highly enjoyable social and cultural history is to demonstrate how the various endeavours of these, and other ground breakers were interrelated. France's adaptation to unless France really developed idea the motor car changed Proust's way of life. A new subjectivism, spurred by Bergson's spiritual philosophy, made possible Debussy's exploration of musical nuance, Picasso and Braque's invention of Cubism, and poet Charles Peguy's vision of a socialist utopia. Mingling gossip, biography and astute commentary, this chronicle tracks Diaghilev, Colette, Matisse, and a host of others.
Through anecdotes and capsule biographies of painters, writers, musicians, scientists, and intellectuals, Cronin accounts for that dazzling but doomed culture of Paris during the ``Belle Epoque,'' the period between the Great Exhibition of 1900 and WWI. Believing that artists and intellectuals had immense impact on the ``bourgeois civilization'' that was Paris, Cronin re- creates the ``paradigm for civilized living'' from the philosophy of Boutroux, Blondel, and especially Bergson; from the writings of Gide, Proust, Claudel, Peguy; from the art of Picasso, Matisse (who ``captured the colour and joy of life''), Dufy, Utrillo, Modigliani; from the music of Debussy (``his finer gradations of feelings''), the theatre of Sarah Bernhardt (``gently mannered comedy''), the science of the Curies and Poincoire, and all the arts associated with and stimulated by Diaghilev and the Russian ballet. Chapters on politics, women (their roles and couturiers), interior design, and technology-especially the French success with cinematography, motorcars, and airplanes-all contribute to a sense of prosperity, confidence, optimism, political liberality, the special quality of esprit Cronin defines as intellectual and spiritual confidence. In a perceptive synthesis of science and art, he notes that ``The Fall...has been reversed by the Flight.'' And while his attempt to identify the contributions of some thinkers is occasionally strained, it is always interesting, especially on Gide's spirituality and Claudel's ``redemptive suffering.'' Still: an engrossingly vivid, immediate, and informed attempt to find a unified view of a culture that was made up of eccentrics, idiosyncrasy, diversity, and alienation.
February 16, 2014
This book has taken a long time to read for me because it comes across in many ways as disjointed. The author has attempted to recreate the Paris that existed just prior the start of world war 1. To some extent he succeeded in doing so with this book but you have to be prepared to read a lot of fairly lengthy biographies if the people who set the literary scene first...and then finally you start to move into other topics such as the arts and sciences. (mostly men all categories - women get one chapter to themselves with a fairly superficial overview)
Where this book fails though is giving you an overall look at the city itself. It could have done with a social calender such as what were the major art and fashion shows and what time of year they were held. People flocked to these each year but they are only mentioned in passing. Also the favorite hotels and cafes (and why they were so) and which areas of the city were known for specialties (eg food, the night life etc)there seems to be an assumption of the author that the reader will know these things but in my case that certainly wasn't true.
Pick up this book if you want a summary of the lives of the important Parisian artists, scientists and authors c1900-1913 but for me while I certainly learnt a lot from this book it was still an unsatisfactory read.
Where this book fails though is giving you an overall look at the city itself. It could have done with a social calender such as what were the major art and fashion shows and what time of year they were held. People flocked to these each year but they are only mentioned in passing. Also the favorite hotels and cafes (and why they were so) and which areas of the city were known for specialties (eg food, the night life etc)there seems to be an assumption of the author that the reader will know these things but in my case that certainly wasn't true.
Pick up this book if you want a summary of the lives of the important Parisian artists, scientists and authors c1900-1913 but for me while I certainly learnt a lot from this book it was still an unsatisfactory read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews