Video Description
The early years of Montparnasse heralded the arrival of writers and artists who shared youth, idealism, and the desire to break with artistic conventions. Poet Guillaume Apollinaire became the conscience of the pre-World War I era, and Picasso and Andre Derain led a radical new art movement that swept across Paris and Europe. In
The Brilliant Years, Russian artist Zadkine, the art dealer Kahnweiler, and other contemporaries recall the impact Cubism had on Montparnasse, while Sonia Delaunay describes the construction of the Eiffel Tower as seen through the eyes of her artist husband Robert Delaunay. Capturing turn-of-the-century Paris with serene, classical photography, footage from Eugene Atget's early documentary work forms a marked contrast to the shocking modernity of the era's burgeoning art forms.
