Proto-Dada Works from Montmartre in the Belle Epoche

The rich and totally mischievious world of Montmartre in the 1880s and 1890s produced many works that remarkably presage those produced by Dadaists twenty or thirty years later. Here are some created by humorist Alphonse Allais (1854-1905), and by some of the other habituees of Montmartre.

Venus

Mona Lisa with a Pipe by Sapeck (Eugène Bataille), 1887

Alfonse Allais, Funeral March Composed for the Funeral of a Great Deaf Man (1897)

Alfonse Allais Band of Greyfriars in the Fog

Allais, Tomato Harvest by Apoplectic Cardinals on the Shore of the Red Sea

Allais, Negroes Fighting in a Cave by Night (1882)

Allais, Some Pimps, known as Green Backs, on their Bellies in the Grass, Drinking Absinthe

Allais, The Stupor of Young Recruits, on Perceiving for the First Time your Azure, o Mediterrenean!