19th century Parisian Avant Garde

May 12, 2004 6:01 PM

“Counter Culture: Parisian Cabarets and the Avant Garde, 1875-1905. Underdiscussed art movements from the 19th century, such as the Hydropathes and the Incohérents, that intellectually resembled Dada and prefigured it by a considerable amount of time. [Via 2 Blowhards]
posted by dgaicun (5 comments total)

wonderful stuff-- i wish there was more art or photos tho : >
posted by amberglow at 8:46 PM on May 12, 2004

interesting stuff, dgaicun. thanks. the bataille "mona lisa with a pipe" on the incohérents page inevitably reminds me of duchamp's [more recent] L.H.O.O.Q, just as bilhaud's monochrome "negroes fighting in a cellar at night" reminds me of malevich's "black square on a white field", although the former is 30 or so years older. i'm pretty interested in the surrealist and dada movements, so finding earlier analogues is pretty exciting.

unfortunately, i can't seem to find much about them on the web, although frenchculture.org has a few more pictures, and absoluteart.org has some more on the montmarte cabaret scene which nurtured the hydropathes and incohérents. i wonder if there are any decent books about them...
posted by ubersturm at 9:35 PM on May 12, 2004

There's a little more about Alphonse Allais here (mostly in French), and some examples of his paintings here (in German).
posted by misteraitch at 12:10 AM on May 13, 2004

How little we know ... or how little I knew. Thanks for this.
posted by donfactor at 4:32 AM on May 13, 2004

Cool link. Yay, you!
posted by dejah420 at 1:48 PM on May 13, 2004