Friday we went to see le Grand Palais' latest exhibit Boheme, which chronicles the concept of bohemians from early Egypt to modern day Montmartre. The exhibit includes paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso and Satie exhibiting artists' interest in the marginal and nomadic for more than four centuries. It was fascinating to see the way the idea of bohemians has evolved becoming more than a way of life but a posture and philosophy.
The exhibit shows the birth of bohemians as a concept in the late seventeenth century, which blooms in the middle of the nineteenth century, peaks in the early twentieth and declines in the booming 30s. Daughter of the Revolution bohemianism flourished between Romanticism and Realism. The term "bohemian" has so many meanings and uses. Originally refers to the region Bohemia and the metaphor Bohemian people who were free to travel throughout Europe. It was used as an adjective in the nineteenth century to discriminant and catalog all those who wander in the margins of society. Later bohemian became a facet of the Romantic movement with the idealization of gypsies, artists and bohemians rejecting bourgeois society and living in a shadowy impoverished world of cafes, dance halls and shaby studios.
