Author(s): Isabelle Julia

Art

Modern Woman explores a watershed period of French history through drawings of women by major artists of the Belle Epoque. Modern Woman explores more than 90 drawings of women at the time of the Belle Epoque, a significant period of artistic and social change in France. Featured in this beautifully illustrated publication are drawings by some of the leading artists of the period - including Pierre Bonnard, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Jean-Francois Millet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. These art works depict women from different social backgrounds variously engaged in scenes of family life and domestic activity, at play and in love, and in the public realms of city streets, cafes and the stage. As well as being a group of exceptional drawings, these depictions both interpret the changing role of women in French society and represent the increasing abandonment of idealised images of the female form by artists of the modern era.