The Bright Sides of La Belle Époque

Paris, circa 1871-1914

Light falls on rippling waters in Signac’s pointillistic paintings.

Artists fill the Montmartre, framing their lives & livelihoods.

Beauty fills the visual fields of quixotic Parisians.

Europe thrives between the Franco-Prussian War & WWI.

Lively people stroll the streets in this fresh, flamboyant fashion.

Lively people share their sheets in Eve and/or Adam’s fashion.

Eclairs share old shelves with new pastries like the Paris-Brest.

Émilie Charmy paints female models from a feminine perspective.

Peugeot automobiles cruise cobblestones, drawn by invisible horses.

Optimism perfuses the cerebra of quixotic Parisians.

Quixote rides a real horse at the New Circus on Rue St-Honoré.

Universities such as the Sorbonne illuminate industrial ideas.

Eiffel’s tower watches over an age-old city lit by electricity.

Note:

La Belle Époque is French for ‘The Beautiful Era’.

Patricia Sykes is a poet and librettist. Her poems and collections have received various awards, including the Newcastle Poetry Prize, John Shaw Neilson award and the Tom Howard Poetry Prize. She has read her work widely and it has featured on ABC radio programs Poetica and The Spirit of Things. Her collaborations with composer Liza Lim have been performed in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Paris, Germany, Russia, New York and the UK. She was Asialink Writer in Residence, Malaysia, 2006. A selection of her poems was published in an English/Chinese edition by Flying Island Books in 2017. A song cycle composed by Andrew Aronowicz, based on her collection The Abbotsford Mysteries, premiered at The Abbotsford Convent Melbourne — now an arts precinct — in 2019. A podcast of this work is available on various platforms.