How Paris was the crucible of modern art

Paris was the dazzling crucible of the art world from about 1900 to 1940. Why? Well, rent was cheap, wine plentiful and, as composer Virgil Thomson observed, "If I were going to starve, I might as well starve where the food was agreeable."

There also was camaraderie, and a pervasive sense that rules were inconveniences to be ignored, or scorned. The idea of "modern" was forged in a relatively confined area (like Montparnasse) by a small group of geniuses who would one day fill a couple of wings of the Met - Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, Chagall, Leger, Rivera, to name a few.

And while "modern" was a convenient label for their work, more specific "ism" movements within this broader movement were defined, refined and later rejected over these years - Cubism, Fauvism, surrealism and Marcel Duchamp's "Ready Made" style that would directly affect the New York art world of the '60s and beyond.

Here also was the Ballets Russes, and Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned works by Igor Stravinsky; and Shakespeare & Co., the English-language bookstore that would one day publish James Joyce's "Ulysses"; oh, and Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, too.

MY SAY

As the above perhaps conveys, "Paris the Luminous Years" is a conga line of boldface names that will be of specific interest to anyone - and probably only anyone - interested in Juan Gris or who actually knows who Juan Gris was. (For the record, he was an influential Spanish painter who died in 1927.) The bounty of these luminous years is almost too much for any single program to handle - even one that stretches two hours - and so, at moments, "Paris" rushes when it should pause or at least tarry a bit. Art commands most of "Paris' " attention, while expat Americans get just a passing glance toward the end; Hemingway ultimately dismisses Stein as a "salon woman. What a lousy, stinking life. A rose is a rose is an onion."

BOTTOM LINE

SEE PHOTOSTV shows that made an impact

A good, intelligent overview of modern art - the Paris years - in all its glory, though at times a bit of a survey.

GRADE

B+