Albert Robida's 'La Sortie de l'Opéra en l'An 2000' – Aerial Paris
Albert Robida, the visionary French satirist and illustrator whose dense, caricature-laden chromolithographs defined Belle Époque retro-futurism, presents a chaotic aerial traffic scene above a future Paris. Elegantly dressed opera-goers board and disembark from a dazzling variety of personal flying machines — torpedo-shaped flyers, open-deck aerial omnibuses, and private sky-carriages — while a floating restaurant and Art Nouveau streetlamps anchor the fantastical skyline. Robida's characteristic wit and social satire shine through every detail.
More Jules Verne carnival than H.G. Wells nightmare — Robida's image bursts with kinetic social comedy and impossible aerial spectacle, packing roughly forty flying vehicles and a hundred characters into one gloriously overcrowded vision of the future.
“LA SORTIE DE L'OPÉRA EN L'AN 2000 Restaurant A. Robi[da]”
