Two years later, in 1902, ‘Les Joyeux Nègres’ (The Cheerful Negroes), a show featuring The Little Walkers at the Nouveau Cirque, caused a sensation when it introduced the cakewalk to its audiences. In 1906, Debussy composed his (unfortunately named) ‘Gollywog’s Cakewalk’, while in the following year Picasso and Matisse both produced iconic paintings (Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon and Blue Nude respectively) which celebrated the art of Africa, which they had seen at the famous exhibition of African Art in Paris. Earlier, as the Belle Époque reached its climax in 1900, a younger Picasso was hurriedly sketching the clients and prostitutes dancing at the clubs of Montmartre, just as Toulouse-Lautrec’s ‘Jane Avril’ was appearing on advertising columns around the city, thanks to the new techniques in colour printing. It was somehow symbolic that the Moulin Rouge, built in 1885 as a windmill, should be converted to a dance hall in 1900, when the famous red sails came to signify not an advancing technology but a different aspect of the new century – hedonism, sexuality and the pursuit of pleasure.
