On 29 November 2024, the exhibition The Belle Epoque. European art of the turn of the 20th Century from the Collection of the State Hermitage Museum opened at the Hermitage–Kazan Centre.

It is devoted to the unprecedented flowering of culture in Europe in the period between the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, a time which has become known as the Belle Epoque – “the beautiful epoch”.

“The exhibition is unique in its composition and its twist on the theme. It tells how much richer and more varied the artistic life of France was than the existing stereotype about the revolution brought about by the Impressionists. It also shows once again how many different aspects and meanings the Hermitage’s collections have, and how that complexity of presentation and perception finds expression precisely in such pleasant, but thematically focussed exhibitions”, Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, Director General of the State Hermitage, says.

These were Europe’s happiest, most carefree years, an era of prosperity, peace and well-being. The Belle Epoque was to a greater degree than any other period in history an embodiment of savoir-vivre – the art of living elegantly. The name itself is not devoid of a nostalgic note and did not appear until after the First World War, when the era was already over. Recent traumatizing experience was compared to the good old days that now belonged irretrievably to the past.

The exhibition presents visitors with a broad panorama of art spanning more than 40 years. The display contains 175 exhibits from the stocks of the State Hermitage that convey a picture of that amazing time which changed for ever the very essence of art. They include selected works by Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and other significant artists of the Belle Epoque. Besides paintings, the display will include drawings, prints and works of decorative and applied art.

The exhibition curators are Mikhail Olegovich Dedinkin, head of the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art, and Olga Dmitriyevna Leontyeva, senior researcher and chief curator of that department.

The exhibition forms part of the Hermitage days – a series of unique museum events that allow people to experience the State Hermitage’s extremely rich collections outside of Saint Petersburg. The Belle Epoque will be the third Hermitage exhibition presented in Kazan in 2024. In February the exhibition Believe not thine eyes! Illusions in art began its run at the Hermitage–Kazan Centre, followed in September, in the run-up to the BRICS summit, by ‘Men of nobility hasten to the table…’ Feasting and hunting in the lands of the east.

The exhibition The Belle Epoque. European art of the turn of the 20th Century from the Collection of the State Hermitage Museum can be visited by holders of entrance tickets to the Hermitage–Kazan Centre until 14 September 2025.

The sections of the exhibition

Landscape

In the history of painting, the 19th century became the age of landscape. The genre was the arena in which the most important changes and experiments took place. The upsurge of interest in the landscape was occasioned not only by a rejection of the narrative element in favour of painting in itself: in 1841 tubes as containers for paint were patented, which enabled artists to work outdoors, en plein air, while by the late 1860s France was criss-crossed by a network of railways. The journey to some of the most attractive suburbs now took less than an hour.

The landscapes presented in this section show how diverse the artistic searchings of Belle Epoque painters were. Visitors can compare the manners of André Derain and Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Alfred Sisley.

Outdoor leisure

In France, the 19th century was marked by the appearance of a large number of parks and gardens, The urban planning reform of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann gave Paris around thirty new small public gardens, while thousands of trees were planted on the city’s boulevards and streets. On Sundays, the city would empty as the populace headed for the suburbs.

The development of sea transport encouraged the popularity of gardening, which reached a peak in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th. This general enthusiasm did not pass artists by, and many of them also acquired their own gardens. Among the paintings in this section of the exhibition are works by Henri Matisse, Auguste Renoir and, of course, Claude Monet – the most famous gardener in the worldwide history of painting.

Amusements

Against a background of economic prosperity and a general improvement in the quality of life in Paris, a great many new forms of leisure activity appeared. Cafés chantants, cabarets, music halls, circuses, race tracks, restaurants and cafés were no longer only within the reach of the middle class, but could also be afforded by the rural population and ordinary workers.

This section is devoted to the nightlife of Paris. Here visitors can see the celebrated posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and those of lesser-known artists, as well as paintings and graphic works that reflected the most diverse amusements of the Parisian public.

Paris

The French capital became the inspiration, symbol and main locale for the Belle Epoque. In this period, wealthy Paris was repeatedly reconstructed, while its population tripled, and artists strove to convey the spirit of the revamped city.

This section will present exhibition-goers with both Salon paintings and the explorations of innovators, including Camille Pissarro, who produced more views of the French capital than any of the Impressionists. One of Pissarro’s views of Montmartre also features in the display.

An abundance of shops and the development of the printing trade led to the mass production of colourful, eye-catching posters, often in a very large format. The posters by Toulouse-Lautrec, Théophile Steinlen, Alphonse Mucha and Pierre Bonnard on show in this section flooded the streets of Paris, turning them into open-air art galleries.

Portraits of the era

The whole world knows the Impressionists, who were once all but obscure, yet it has forgotten the idols of the Belle Epoque – the masters of portraiture. At one time they were the glory of France and accepted numerous commissions, from the Russian nobility among others.

Displayed in this section are works by the maître of the Paris Salon Alexandre Cabanel and “the last court portraitist” Philip de László, as well as other artists much in demand in their day. Salon artists showed inventiveness in their choice of poses, gestures and angles of view, so as to avoid a static look. The string of pearls carelessly thrown around Princess Olga Paley’s neck in Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret’s depiction seems to be slipping off her shoulder by chance. As soon as we transfer our gaze to Renoir’s Lady in Black, however, all the artificiality of such devices becomes evident.

Beauties

In the Belle Epoque, good looks, especially feminine beauty, were elevated to the level of a cult. Fashion reached its peak and was already becoming an inseparable part of life. Cosmetology, perfumery and hairdressing flourished.

One of the most popular fields in French painting was the nude genre. In contrast to the Salon artists, Renoir, Matisse and many others did not require any sort of narrative justification for the depiction of a naked body, their painted their own contemporaries – real-life women and not some fashionable ideal. Exhibition visitors will be able to detect key differences in the views of female beauty held by the best artists of the period.

Art nouveau

Technical advances and the rapid development of industry in the second half of the 19th century affected the very process of creating articles. Hand work was everywhere giving way to mechanization, which led to a decline in the quality and the beauty of the product. The response to these processes was the trend that became known by the French name Art Nouveau – “new art”.

From that time on, everything – from architecture, wallpaper and furniture to book bindings or cutlery – acquired significance and was supposed to be in harmony, to conform to a single style. This section of the exhibition contains numerous lithographs, advertising posters, tapestries, vases and pieces of porcelain: material evidence of an aesthetic revolution that expressed the very essence of the Belle Epoque.