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Paul Morand
Paul Morand (13 March 1888 – 24 July 1976) was a French author whose short stories and novellas were lauded for their style, wit and descriptive power. His most productive literary period was the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s. He was much admired by the upper echelons of society and the artistic avant-garde who made him a cult favorite. He has been categorized as an early Modernist and Imagist. Morand was a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, preparing him for a diplomatic career, and also attended Oxford University. A member of the upper class and married into wealth, he held various diplomatic posts and traveled widely. He was typical of those in his social group who enjoyed lives of privilege and entitlement, adhering to the inevitability and desirability of class distinction. Morand espoused a reflexive adherence to racial, ethnic and anti-Semitic ideologies. His intellectual influences included the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther'' (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. While still a schoolboy, Massenet was admitted to France's principal music college, the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired. After winning the country's top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres, but quickly became best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death forty-five years later he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra-comique to grand-scale depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies, lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Paris. Dadaist activities lasted until the mid 1920s. Developed in reaction to World War I, the Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works. The art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up technique, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Dadaist artists expressed their discontent toward violence, war, and nationalism, and maintained political affinities with Radical politics, radical left-wing and far-left politics. There is no consensus on the origin of the movement's name; a common story is that the German artis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soutzos
The House of Drakos-Soutzos or Soutsos ( el, Σούτσου, ro, Suțu or ) is a Greek Phanariote family originally from Chios, which grew into prominence and power in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) during the last centuries of Ottoman Empire and gave several ''hospodars'' to the Danubian Principalities, like Alexandros Soutzos, Mihai Suțu and Michael Soutzos (Mihail Suțu). History The origins of the Soutzos family are unclear. Some authors theorize Albanian, or Byzantine Greek descent for the family. Konstantinos Drako, son of a rhetor of the patriarchate (Diamantaki Drako), was the man who was first Soutzos to rise to prominence. He married in 1714 princess Maria Rusetaina, daughter of a long-established Phanariote family (her mother was Helena Mavrokordataina and her paternal grandfather Antonie had under Ottoman overlordship even held the princely rule in the Danubian countries). Konstantinos' in-laws raised Konstantinos to high positions in Danubian principali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous English title translation of ''Remembrance of Things Past''), originally published in French in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by critics and writers to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Background Proust was born on 10 July 1871 at the home of his great-uncle in the Paris Borough of Auteuil (the south-western sector of the then-rustic 16th arrondissement), two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prussian War. His birth took place at the very beginning of the Third Republic, during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the Republic. Much of ''In Search of Lost Time'' concerns the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hôtel Ritz Paris
The Ritz Paris is a hotel in central Paris, overlooking the Place Vendôme in the city's 1st arrondissement. A member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing group, the Ritz Paris is ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world. The hotel was founded in 1898 by the Swiss hotelier César Ritz in collaboration with the French chef Auguste Escoffier. The hotel was constructed behind the façade of an eighteenth-century townhouse. It was among the first hotels in Europe to provide an en suite bathroom, electricity, and a telephone for each room. It quickly established a reputation for luxury and attracted a clientele that included royalty, politicians, writers, film stars, and singers. Several of its suites are named in honour of famous guests of the hotel including Coco Chanel, and the cocktail lounge Bar Hemingway pays tribute to writer Ernest Hemingway. Beginning in 2012, the 159-room hotel underwent a four-year, multimillion-euro renovation, reopening on 6 June 201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art For Art's Sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorced from any didactic, moral, political, or utilitarian function.Art for art's sake (revised ed.). ''''. 2015. Such works are sometimes described as '''' (from Greek: ''autoteles'', 'complete in i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fin De Siècle
() is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, the term is typically used to refer to the end of the 19th century. This period was widely thought to be a period of social degeneracy, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning. The "spirit" of often refers to the cultural hallmarks that were recognized as prominent in the 1880s and 1890s, including ennui, cynicism, pessimism, and "a widespread belief that civilization leads to decadence.” The term is commonly applied to French art and artists, as the traits of the culture first appeared there, but the movement affected many European countries. The term becomes applicable to the sentiments and traits associated with the culture, as opposed to focusing solely on the movement's initial recognition in France. The ideas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration. Early life Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann). Raphaël Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870 and following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war, he and his family first moved to Basel in Switzerland, where he went to high school and later on to Paris. The childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Giraudoux
Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux (; 29 October 1882 – 31 January 1944) was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy. Giraudoux's dominant theme is the relationship between man and woman—or in some cases, between man and some unattainable ideal. Biography Giraudoux was born in Bellac, Haute-Vienne, where his father, Léger Giraudoux, worked for the Ministry of Transport. Giraudoux studied at the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux and upon graduation traveled extensively in Europe. After his return to France in 1910, he accepted a position with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the outbreak of World War I, he served with distinction and in 1915 became the first writer ever to be awarded the wartime Legion of Honour. He married in 1918 and in the subsequent inter-war period produced the majority of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Biography Mallarmé was born in Paris. He was a boarder at the ''Pensionnat des Frères des écoles chrétiennes à Passy'' between 6 or 9 October 1852 and March 1855. He worked as an English teacher and spent much of his life in relative poverty but was famed for his '' salons'', occasional gatherings of intellectuals at his house on the rue de Rome for discussions of poetry, art and philosophy. The group became known as ''les Mardistes,'' because they met on Tuesdays (in French, ''mardi''), and through it Mallarmé exerted considerable influence on the work of a generation of writers. For many years, those sessions, where Mallarmé held court as judge, jester, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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