Historic Painting: “Karneval in Nizza” by Otto Dinger, 1912.
This painting captures the fun and innocence of European society in the years just before World War I.
This beautiful painting is very much of its time. An obvious celebration, women are clad in Edwardian fashions, men wear frock coats, bowlers and top hats, and there’s a sense here of a calmer, simpler time. The people in the lower right-hand corner, apparently meeting on the street, are mostly smiling. The uniformed policeman is helping a mother with two young children cross through the square. There are horse carriages but no automobiles. We seem to be in the 20th century, but just barely so. Mediterranean sunlight drenches the stone-clad buildings in the back. There’s a lot going on here, but the picture doesn’t look chaotic.
“Karneval in Nizza” was painted in 1912 by German artist Otto Dinger. It depicts a Carnival, the typical season of celebration in the 40 days before Lent, in the city of Nice on the French Riviera. Nice’s Carnival is one of the best-known in Europe, having been celebrated in modern times since 1873, though the roots of the celebration in that city go much farther back into the Middle Ages. The Nice version of Carnival is marked especially by residents throwing colorful flowers into the streets, which is what you see here in this painting. The 2025 edition of the festival kicked off on February 12 and was, as it usually is, a major tourist attraction in the city, heavily monetized with parades, balls and fireworks shows. Hundreds of thousands of spectators cram into the city to take part.
