Belle Epoque Research Articles

Espaços movediços e conflitantes na Manaus de Milton Hatoum

As práticas espaciais destruidoras que tiveram lugar em Manaus durante a ditadura militar assombram Cinzas do Norte, de Milton Hatoum, de 2005. A ambientação do romance nos faz considerar como a cidade é significativa tanto para a narrativa imaginária, quanto para além dos limites do romance. Descobrimos, neste processo, uma Manaus em mudança contínua, que desafia a representação e ostenta as marcas de lutas de poder e violência histórica. A arquitetura da belle époque e a Cidade Flutuante são topoi que são significativos para esse jogo de interpretação espacial. A Cidade Flutuante é ao mesmo tempo um bairro real e uma metáfora que sugere um espaço vulnerável, muitas vezes eclipsado pelo peso imponente das estruturas neoclássicas da belle époque de Manaus.

Language and organizational culture in the Oswaldo Cruz institute 1900-1930

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n1p230A literatura médica consumida e produzida pelo Instituto Oswaldo Cruz e a circulação do seu pessoal por instituições estrangeiras, desde a sua criação em 1900 até o golpe de estado no Brasil, que conduziu Vargas ao poder em 1930, testemunham a natureza complexa, multilingue e internacional do intercâmbio científico durante e para além da belle époque, ao mesmo tempo que desafiam noções de comportamento associado a modelos coloniais econômicos. Para explorar os parâmetros da cultura organizacional do Instituto nos seus primórdios no que diz respeito à língua, analisar-se-ão três das suas publicações referentes ao período em análise: um livreto promocional em alemão de 1911, que lista as revistas assinadas pelo Instituto e as publicações dos seus investigadores; um travelogue de 1929 em língua inglesa sobre os centros de tratamento de lepra que existiam mundialmente; e a revista Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (1909-), que, durante o período, publicou artigos em cinco línguas. Os resultados indicam que a política linguística do Instituto, flexível e avidamente multilingue, parcialmente devido à situação política periférica do Brasil, conduziu a uma forte posição multilateral na comunidade científica que lhe proporcionou visibilidade e reconhecimento como um igual na então emergente área internacional da Medicina Tropical.

Two Nice Girls: The Psychogeography of Renée Vivien and Romaine Brooks

ABSTRACTThis article uses the somewhat unconventional approach of psychogeography (understanding mental landscapes through the lived experience of geographic ones) to retrace the experiences in Nice of two women artists, the writer Renée Vivien (Pauline Tarn, 1877–1909) and the painter Romaine Brooks (1874–1970). While both women spent significant amounts of time in Nice, and therefore would appear to have something in common, a street-level recreation of their living choices reveals profound incompatibilities. Vivien enjoyed the distractions of Belle Epoque Nice (the carnival, the casinos), while Brooks lived a more reclusive existence in the more ‘Italian’ part of Nice. These insights help explain why their affair in the first decade of the twentieth century was doomed and they failed to appreciate each other’s artistic gifts.

An ephemeral open-air sculpture museum: ten temporary monuments for the festive return of the Belgian royal family to Brussels, November 1918

This article has a series of ten temporary monuments erected in Brussels in November 1918 as its subject. The series, forming a trajectory throughout the city, included sculptures by Jules Lagae, Charles Samuel, Philippe Wolfers, Jacques Marin, Louis Mascre, Leandre Grandmoulin, Joseph Francois Van Hamme, George Vande Voorde, Marquis Jean de Pouilly and Guillaume Charlier. Erected barely a fortnight after the Armistice, not only their scale and sculptural endeavour, but also the fact they were the result of an official commission makes this ensemble exceptional. We first assess the genesis, reception and afterlife of these monuments against the background of the immediate post-war era. Next, we argue that the concept of the city as a democratic open-air sculpture museum, already much in vogue in Brussels in the Belle Epoque, as well as existing traditions of ephemeral public sculpture both before and during the war, contributed to this unique initiative.

The Fruits of Disaggregation: The Engineering Industry, Tariff Protection, and the Industrial Investment Cycle in Italy, 1861-1913

All the extant interpretations of united Italy’s early industrial development focus on the long swing in industrial investment evident in the familiar indices of the engineering industry’s aggregate product. Disaggregated production series for that industry have now been compiled. The evidence they incorporate establishes that the long swing that dominates the aggregate was actually in the production of hardware, tied to investment in infrastructure. The production of machinery followed a different path: against the extant literature it shows that tariff hikes were influential, and above all that industry’s purchases of (domestic and foreign) equipment grew very steadily decade after decade. Industrial investment did not grow faster than before in the 1880s or over the belle epoque, it did not follow the long swing at all: the disaggregation of the engineering-industry product series has undercut the empirical premise of sixty years of scholarship.

Cultural History of Costume: Lace as Terra Incognita

This article considers the problem of original as “Terra Incognita” in the cultural history of costume. The starting point here is a special case in the studies of costume theory. It is the cultural matrix of the West European lace — an insufficiently explored question in the context of the problem of prototype and its repetitions. The cultural text, provided by research object, is analyzed from the standpoint of authenticity and continuity of deposits. The study is focused on appeal to the history of Belle Epoque. at that time, carefully reproduced renaissance forms and their numerous interpretations were put into active circulation. It is noted that the imitative works of that time can be represented on a conventional scale related to their level of independence. They are replications, interpretations with varying degrees of liberty, and fakes. along with the history of lace, there are studied various kinds of repetitions in other subject areas of costumology. The article identifies the conditions in which inauthentic things can have a certain cultural value, defines their role in the formation of “imitative” costume. The study concludes that special cases, considered from the culturological point of view, can not only extend the event-series of the history of costume, but also serve as the basis for constructing cultural text of the era.

Cidade e natureza: as águas relendo uma Belém da belle époque (1870 aos anos iniciais de 1910)

O artigo investigou a articulação entre cidade e natureza considerando os usos d’água na cidade de Belém do Pará durante o período da belle époque. As principais fontes foram jornais da época. Concluiu-se que cidade e natureza, não mais como opostos, compuseram um ideal de vida urbana durante o período evocado.

Um discurso da Belle Époque: moda e modo de vida na revista Illustração Pelotense

Resumo Este artigo tem como objetivo a análise da revista Illustração Pelotense, que circulou na cidade de Pelotas, localizada no extremo sul do Rio Grande do Sul, no início do século XX, período compreendido como sua Belle Époque. Tendo como base teórica e metodológica a semiótica discursiva, pretende-se recuperar os valores e o modo de vida da sociedade pelotense dessa época, a partir das capas, dos anúncios e das crônicas veiculadas por essa revista. Por ser um objeto que articula diferentes linguagens, buscou-se, também, como aporte teórico, correntes vinculadas à semiótica discursiva, como a do visual e a das mudanças. Dos desejos individuais à consagração pública, a assimilação de outros valores é incorporada à cidade e mostrada através da mídia impressa.

Light into Darkness: The Significance of Glowworms and Fireflies in Western Culture

The lampyrids (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) belong to the few insects that have been named and observed accurately for thousands of years. The most common names in European languages are formed as diminutives of light and related terms or they are composed of a term like light, fire and glow in combination with bug, fly or worm. There is a huge variety of idiomatic names - in Italian dialects e.g. about 500 different expressions denominating species like Lampyris noctiluca or Luciola italica are reported. Beyond that, lampyrids are interpreted as signs or used as metaphors in a wide range of the semantic field. Thus, the notion of lampyrids leads to a vast network of associations including such distinct and even contradictory significances as childhood, crop, doom, elves, fear, habitat change, idyll, love, luck, mortality, prostitution, solstice, stars and fleetingness of words and cognition. All these connotations are evoked by six features of the observed lampyrids: light in the darkness, season of appearance, mating, direction of flying in the case of species like Lamprohiza splendidula and Luciola sp., flashing (of Luciola-fireflies) and finally disappearance of lampyrids in landscape and perception. The examples of the presence of lampyrids in literature, visual arts, music and evidence in traditional popular culture collected in past years show that the accent of the connotations is shifted by the change of cultural context: in early times the seasonal indication was relevant for the agricultural calendar, the romantic connotations had their golden age during Belle Epoque while in recent decades the associations circle around the disappearance of glowworms and fireflies. Although, the observer is not normally aware of the full richness of significances, the extraordinary complexity of connotations is an important factor for the fascination produced by lightning bugs during summer nights.

The Visual Journey of Manon Lescaut: Emblematic Tendencies and Artistic Innovation

AbstractThe visual corpus of Manon Lescaut is a rich and complex ensemble. In this article I discuss five prevalent and distinct tendencies in the illustration of Prévost's novel, looking at iconographic series that are highly original and/or particularly intriguing in the interpretation they propose of this canonical text. I have chosen examples from five time periods (the Directory, the Romantic era, the Belle Epoque, the inter‐war years and the 1950s) and two geographic regions (France and America). I focus on book illustration as a receptacle for artistic creativity, a site for the reception of the text and a locus for strategic marketing.

Literatura, formación y república. André Maurois y el instinto de felicidad burgués (Primera parte)

This article describes the relationship between literature and the educational ideals of Andre Maurois (1885-1967). After a review of his formative years in the shadow of the philosopher Alain, who was his teacher at Rouen Lyceum, the paper goes on to highlight the presence of military elements in his educational universe The extent of this influence can be seen in the fact that, after the Dreyfus affair, the educational work undertaken during the Third French Republic (1870-1940) is best understood in the light of the combination between intelligence and weapons, that is, between the lyceum and the garrison. Maurois, who traveled throughout the United States, was concerned about the atmosphere of crisis in the decade of the twenties and thirties, and took inspiration from Marshal Hubert Lyautey in order to comprehend the characteristics of the art of leadership. This skill, together with the art of thinking, the art of loving, the art of working, and the art of growing old, give shape to the various aspects of Maurois’ The Art of Living (1939), which fits nicely in the best of French pedagogical traditions (Montaigne, Rousseau, Alain) and highlights the importance of the task of living. Ultimately, and from a bourgeois stance embracing order, Maurois intended for the human being to lead a happy life, in line with the Republican values inherited from the 1789 Revolution. In short, he was an intellectual who combined tradition and modernity in a changing world that, after World War I (1914-1918), left behind the false securities of the Belle Epoque. An author who never forgot the perspective of human happiness beyond any metaphysical consideration, Maurois’ work had a great impact in Spain, before and after the Civil War. This paper expounds on the influence he exerted and the way he contributed decisively to changing the public sense of morality in our country.

A face disforme da Belle époque: o monstruoso e a cosmovisão de Eu, de Augusto dos Anjos e de Urupês, de Monteiro Lobato

O objetivo de nossas considerações é investigar os aspectos de Eu (1912), de Augusto dos Anjos e Urupês (1918), de Monteiro Lobato que atestam uma cosmovisão sensível ao monstruoso e que se coloca em posição crítica diante dos modelos estéticos e ideológicos da Belle Époque brasileira. Publicados na década de 1910, época de modernização do país sob ideais de progressismo, eugenia e civilidade burguesa, Eu (livro de poesias) e Urupês (coletânea de contos) debruçam-se sobre aspectos evitados pela literatura oficial daqueles tempos, tais como as contradições sociais do país, as marcas de barbárie que se imprimem na história e lado sórdido da condição humana. Tais temas ganham, nas obras, forma literária a partir de uma linguagem franca e, eventualmente, brutal que recorre ao grotesco e à na ironia para realizar uma estética de choque cuja máxima realização é o motivo do monstro. O corpo monstruoso em Eu e em Urupês (em particular no conto “Bocatorta”) converte-se em privilegiada alegoria da história, expressando a orientação crítica das duas obras em relação ao contraditório processo de modernização do país.

OS BENS DE CONSUMO NOS RECLAMES DO PERÍODO DA BELLE ÉPOQUE EM PELOTAS, NO EXTREMO SUL DO BRASIL, DIVULGADOS PELA REVISTA ILLUSTRAÇÃO PELOTENSE

A Belle Époque foi um período de mudanças políticas, econômicas e socioculturais. Teve origem na França, no final do século XIX, iluminada pelos ideais da Revolução Francesa e pela Revolução Industrial. Transformações, progresso e liberdade formam o tema central de um percurso em busca da civilidade, num discurso de modernidade. Uma visão de mundo que se enunciava com marcas de um outro, em um período eufórico, de alterações no modo de vida da sociedade. Em razão disso, propõe-se neste trabalho a análise do modo de vida da sociedade pelotense e a sua visibilidade por meio dos bens de consumo, divulgados em reclames da mídia impressa local em um período caracterizado como a sua Belle Époque. Como objeto de estudo, optou-se pela revista Illustração Pelotense, que se manteve em atividade entre os anos de 1919 e 1925. Justifica-se essa escolha pela expressiva circulação de suas edições, o que demonstra o interesse de seus leitores. Como base teórica e metodológica, utilizou-se a teoria da semiótica discursiva, a partir de Barros (1990), Landowski (1992) e Oliveira (1997).

O Trabalho Informal na Cidade Fortaleza: Entre o Saneamento Urbano, Políticas Públicas e a Filosofia (1880-1910)

Busca-se com este artigo analisar as maneiras pelas quais os trabalhadores das ruas, tais como carregadores, vendedores e pedintes, articulavam seus dias na cidade de Fortaleza, no final do século XIX, em meio as articulações políticas e normativas da província cearense. Apesar das diversas tentativas da elite política, médica e intelectual estabelecerem discursos e práticas contra a presença maciça, o trabalho desarticulado e o corpo doente dos populares, estes, cada vez mais, se faziam presentes por meio dos trabalhos realizados, seja em tempos de seca, seja no período da belle époque fortalezense. Por meio da análise das fontes, problematiza-se a tipificação dos trabalhadores pobres e informais, no momento em que a elite econômica fortalezense desejava instaurar a modernidade comercial na capital cearense. Para o desenvolvimento do artigo foi realizada pesquisa bibliográfica, além do levantamento de dados da época, como fontes primárias (Relatório do Secretario Interino dos Negócios do Interior da Província do Ceará, Atas de Correspondência da Intendência Municipal da cidade de Fortaleza, Atas de Correspondência do Paço Municipal da cidade de Fortaleza); fontes secundárias (Código de Posturas da Cidade de Fortaleza); e livros de crônicas e memórias da cidade de Fortaleza.

DESORDEM PÚBLICA E MORAL: sociedade, patrimonialismo e ambição no conto “A Nova Califórnia”

Starting from the discussion about patrimonialism, developed around theoretical studies of Holanda and Faoro and about political culture and social planning, in Fernandes, this paper aims to analyze the way in which Lima Barreto apprehends social themes and recreates these same themes literarily, as aesthetic elements in the tale “A nova California”. This analysis starts from the assumption that literature is able to capture social and historical aspects of reality without leaving to be creating artistic and aesthetic. The tale in analysis allows capturing political context’s aspects Brazilian Belle Epoque, recreated literally. It's based on this context, while analysis category that we seek to understand the story like an artistic and literary production

Cien años de “El amor brujo” (1915-2015) Manuel de Falla, entre lo culto y lo popular

Manuel de Falla´s Cruel Love subtitled Gypsy story in two parts is a ballet with cante jondo whose premiere was given, in a first chamber version, in Madrid´s Lara Theatre in April of 1915. With only two characters on stage, the attractive gypsy Candelas and her boyfriend Carmelo who are haunted by the ghost of her previous lover, we encounter an original anti-romantic version of the relationship between love and death struggling for the liberation of the soul through that of the body, through flamenco dance and cante jondo. This work was written after a seven-year stay (1907-14) in the Paris of La Belle Epoque and contributes to the renewal of nationalism in music as it has the special interest of questioning the social frontiers between “classical music” and “popular music”. The result is a both complex and popular piece in which are found synthesized such different influences as those of Felipe Pedrell, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinski.

Afternoon of a faun: how Debussy created a new music for the modern world

Claude Debussy was the father of the modern era in classical music. His innovations liberated Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartok to write their iconoclastic works, and his harmonic inventions are still heard in American jazz. Though he was among the most compelling figures of the Belle Epoque, his life is little known to all but scholars; and of his considerable musical output, only Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, La mer, and Clair de lune are widely known. Harvey Lee Snyder addresses this cultural neglect by presenting the composer and his music, without jargon or biographical trivia, in a richly detailed, accurate narrative that reads like a novel. Here is the story of a poor, unschooled Parisian boy swept by odd coincidences to the Paris Conservatory at age ten. Here is a brilliant man struggling to invent a tonal language capable of expressing his unique musical vision, finding inspiration not in Bach and Beethoven but in Mallarme's poetry and the paintings of Whistler and Turner; a man determined to end two centuries of Germanic domination of European music. Here is a reclusive, gentle man whose misguided love affairs ended in scandal and scorn. His hard work failed to end decades of poverty and debt, but when he died in 1918, he was and has remained the foremost French composer of the twentieth century.

Review: Paris Ville Lumière: Une transformation urbaine et sociale, 1855–1937, by Joanne Vajda

Joanne Vajda Paris Ville Lumiere: Une transformation urbaine et sociale, 1855–1937 Paris: L'Harmattan, 2015, 422 pp., 133 b/w illus. €40 (cloth), ISBN 9782343055633 Behind an imprecise title and lackluster cover lies a book that lovers of the French capital will enjoy. Joanne Vajda discusses the urban and social transformation of the City of Light that was mediated by high-class tourism in the period 1855–1937. We learn how the members of the “traveling elite” helped transform the neighborhoods they patronized, originally near the Grands Boulevards, then moving westward, always on the Right Bank; the scholastic Latin Quarter and artistic Montparnasse are not featured, and Montmartre makes only a cameo appearance. The beginning and end dates in the book's title relate to the first and last international expositions Paris hosted, and the bulk of the research concerns the Second Empire and the Belle Epoque. In this study, which originated in her doctoral research at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Vajda taps into a multitude of print and archival sources, taking the painstaking path necessary to comprehend the sociocultural, financial, and environmental dynamic between, on one hand, Paris's business and high-end districts as well as residential beaux quartiers and, on the other, the rich men and women attracted to the city from all over the world. Her sources include guidebooks (including multilingual pamphlets published by hotels), essays by fashionable French writers, hotel guest books, building permits, citizenship applications, bankruptcy files, auction catalogues, and police reports. The first section sets the cultural stage for the “the city of the guidebooks,” the “Paris desœuvre, sensuel et cosmopolite” (389) shaped by, and for, foreigners. Indeed, attracting upscale tourism was one of Baron Haussmann's objectives, and such tourism remains a key economic engine for the Parisian economy. Among other intriguing facts, we learn that by 1855 foreigners were allowed entry on a daily basis into many monuments and museums that the French could patronize only on Sundays; …

“In a Galaxy Far, Far Away . . .”

Disruptive luxury is a recent addition to the lexicon of luxury. Understood as both a practical and philosophical antidote to luxury’s entrenched patterns of production and consumption, the term disruptive is proving to be as indeterminate as the word luxury itself, with its complex historical and cultural formations. This article will briefly explore some of the possible meanings of disruptive luxury, before focusing on new technology, especially rapid prototyping or 3-D printing, as a possible route to luxury’s disruption. Utilizing a fashion spread from American Vogue of 1977 to bring into focus the traditional alliance between the luxury trades and new technology, the article will then explore the cultural, economic, and aesthetic similarities between the current “gilded age” of luxury consumption and the art nouveau designers and clientele of the belle epoque and ask whether established luxury will even notice, let alone “feel the force” of, the disruption.

O Hino às Matemáticas nos Cantos de Maldoror, de Lautréamon

Impressos em 1869, em Bruxelas, Os Cantos de Maldoror não circulariam durante a vida do seu autor, nascido em Montevidéu e morto aos vinte e quatro anos de idade numa Paris sitiada pelo exército prussiano: seriam lidos e comentados, durante a belle époque, apenas por pequenos grupos de simbolistas belgas e de decadentistas franceses. Redescobertos pelos surrealistas durante a segunda guerra mundial, os Cantos se transformariam, entretanto, rapidamente, numa das chaves para a compreensão da nossa modernidade e são hoje considerados como uma das realizações mais radicais da escrita da crueldade, depois de Sade e antes de Artaud.