Marie Bashkirtseff, born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva, was a émigré artist who was born into a nobles family on their estate near the city of Poltava. She lived and worked in Paris, and died at the age of 25.
Marie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or.
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The range of his works includes historical paintings, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects. He is considered one of the most important painters from the academic period. He was also a teacher with a long list of students.
Paul Langevin was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes, an anti-fascist organization created after the 6 February 1934 far right riots. Being a public opponent of fascism in the 1930s resulted in his arrest and being held under house arrest by the Vichy government for most of World War II. Langevin was also president of the Human Rights League (LDH) from 1944 to 1946, having recently joined the French Communist Party.
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov. She was a founding member of both the Jack of Diamonds (1909–1911), Moscow's first radical independent exhibiting group, the more radical Donkey's Tail (1912–1913), and with Larionov invented Rayonism (1912–1914). She was also a member of the German-based art movement Der Blaue Reiter. Born in Russia, she moved to Paris in 1921 and lived there until her death.
An art model poses, often nude, for visual artists as part of the creative process, providing a reference for the human body in a work of art. As an occupation, modeling requires the often strenuous 'physical work' of holding poses for the required length of time, the 'aesthetic work' of performing a variety of interesting poses, and the 'emotional work' of maintaining a socially ambiguous role. While the role of nude models is well-established as a necessary part of artistic practice, public nudity remains transgressive, and models may be vulnerable to stigmatization or exploitation. Artists may also have family and friends pose for them, in particular for works with costumed figures.
Eva Gonzalès was a French Impressionist painter. She was one of the four most notable female Impressionists in the nineteenth century, along with Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), Berthe Morisot (1841–95), and Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916).
Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the north, the rue des Saints-Pères on the west, between the rue de Seine and rue Mazarine on the east, and the rue du Four on the south. Residents of the quarter are known as Germanopratins.
Alice Bailly was a Swiss avant-garde painter, known for her interpretations on cubism, fauvism, futurism, her wool paintings, and her participation in the Dada movement. In 1906, Bailly had settled in Paris where she befriended Juan Gris, Francis Picabia, and Marie Laurencin, avant-garde modernist painters who influenced her works and her later life.
The word grisette has referred to a French working-class woman from the late 17th century and remained in common use through the Belle Époque era, albeit with some modifications to its meaning. It derives from gris and refers to the cheap grey fabric of the dresses these women originally wore. The 1694 edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française described a grisette as simply "a woman of lowly condition". By the 1835 edition of the dictionary, her status had risen somewhat. She was described as:
...a young working woman who is coquettish and flirtatious.
Janet Scudder, born Netta Deweze Frazee Scudder, was an American sculptor and painter from Terre Haute, Indiana, who is best known for her memorial sculptures, bas-relief portraiture, and portrait medallions, as well as her garden sculptures and fountains. Her first major commission was the design for the seal of the New York Bar Association around 1896. Scudder's Frog Fountain (1901) led to the series of sculptures and fountains for which she is best known. Later commissions included a Congressional Gold Medal honoring Domício da Gama and a commemorative medal for Indiana's centennial in 1916. Scudder also displayed her work at numerous national and international exhibitions in the United States and in Europe from the late 1890s to the late 1930s. Scudder's autobiography, Modeling My Life, was published in 1925.
Marie Sallé (1707–1756) was a French dancer and choreographer in the 18th century known for her expressive, dramatic performances rather than a series of "leaps and frolics" typical of ballet of her time.
Fashion in France is an important subject in the culture and country's social life, as well as being an important part of its economy.
Women Surrealists are women artists, photographers, filmmakers and authors connected with the surrealist movement, which began in the early 1920s.
Le Bal des Débutantes, also known simply as "le Bal", is a debutante ball and fashion event held annually in November in Paris. It brings together between 20 and 25 debutantes aged 16 to 22 from many countries, together with their parents and a similar number of young men. It started as a social event and was first held in the Orangery of the Château de Versailles on 10 July 1958.
In the early 9th century, the emperor Charlemagne mandated all churches to give lessons in reading, writing and basic arithmetic to their parishes, and cathedrals to give a higher-education in the finer arts of language, physics, music, and theology; at that time, Paris was already one of France's major cathedral towns and beginning its rise to fame as a scholastic centre. By the early 13th century, the Île de la Cité Notre-Dame cathedral school had many famous teachers, and the controversial teachings of some of these led to the creation of a separate Left-Bank Sainte-Genevieve University that would become the centre of Paris's scholastic Latin Quarter best represented by the Sorbonne university.
Music in the city of Paris, France, includes a variety of genres, from opera and symphonic music to musical theater, jazz, rock, rap, hip-hop, the traditional Bal-musette and gypsy jazz, and every variety of world music, particularly music from Africa and North Africa. such as the Algerian-born music known as Raï. Leading musical institutions include the Paris Opera, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Paris Conservatory, the first state music conservatory in Europe. The Cité de la Musique at La Villette is home of the new Paris Symphony Hall, the Conservatory, a museum of musical instruments, and Le Zenith, a major venue for popular music. Many of the churches in Paris have magnificent historic organs, and often host concerts. The city is also known for its music halls and clubs.
Bal des Quat'z'Arts was a Parisian annual ball, the first held in 1892 and the last in 1966. The event was organised by Henri Guillaume, Professor of Architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts for students of architecture, painting, sculpture, and engraving.
Matilda Auchincloss Brownell was an American Impressionist painter and portraitist.
The Lady in White, also known as The Woman in White, is an 1880 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Marie Bracquemond. It depicts the artist's half-sister Louise Quivoron, who often served as a model for her paintings. It was one of three paintings by Bracquemond shown at the Fifth Impressionist Exhibition in April 1880. A previous painting, Woman in the Garden (1877), may have been a study for The Lady in White. Like other Impressionists, Bracquemond worked outside en plein air, mostly in her garden at Sèvres. The work received renewed attention in 2024, with a series of exhibitions in honor of the 150-year anniversary of the original Impressionist exhibitions.
