Theatres of Melancholy : 9780500094075 : 31 Mar 2022 : "The first substantial book on the French Neo-Romantics, a cosmopolitan group working in 1920s Paris who turned against modernist abstraction in favour of a new form of figurative painting. In 1926, the Galerie Druet in Paris made waves presenting a group of young painters who had spurned modernist abstraction and returned to a form of figurative painting. For most of them this was the first time they had exhibited, but their impact was considerable. Art critic Waldemar George baptized them the 'Neo-Romantics' or the 'Neo-Humanists'. They were influenced by Picasso, in particular his Blue and Rose periods, but went beyond him to forge new ways of painting. These were artists who liked to play with forgotten references and obsolete visual devices such as trompe l'oeil. They produced work for secondary art forms including the theatre, set design and ballet. In some ways they were the first post-modernists in the history of art, yet u