Exhibition catalogue Portraits of the Belle Epoque

Through three generations of painters - Anders Zorn, Édouard Manet, Ramon Casas, Edvard Munch, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Hermen Anglada Camarasa, Max Oppenheimer, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Max Pechstein, Ernst L. Kirchner, Giovanni Boldini, John Singer Sargent, Joaquim Sorolla, Valentín A. Serov, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec...- , the exhibition approaches different aspects of the portrait in order to reflect the transition from an initial state of mind, triumphant and self-confident in the early years, to the acute critical anxiety of the Expressionist portraits of the last ones, which close the itinerary of the exhibition.The main features of the period between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War were sustained economic growth and significant political agitation, which brought about sweeping social changes. In high commercial demand, the portrait is the most representative pictorial genre of the time.

It illustrates the new individualism of modern man and his interest in the image he projects in his social environment. From the point of view of art history it is a genre that allows us to explain the changes that occurred in both stylistic conventions and the relations between the artist and his public or market. Those changes gave rise to the figure of the modern artist.