Paris in the Belle Époque arrived in Montmartre at the turn of the century. Drawn by the reputation of Paris as the world capital of art, Pablo Picasso came from Barcelona in 1900 to share an apartment with the poet Max Ernst and began by painting the cabarets and prostitutes of the neighborhood. Amedeo Modigliani and other artists lived and worked in a building called Le Bateau-Lavoir during the years 1904–1909. In 1909, Picasso painted one of his most important masterpieces, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon", in Le Bateau-Lavoir. Led by Picasso and Georges Braque, the artistic movement cubism was born in Paris. Henri Matisse came to
Georges Braque throughout Paris and then Europe. The two artists' productive collaboration continued and they worked closely together until the beginning of World War I in 1914, when Braque enlisted with the French Army. In May 1915, Braque received a severe head injury in battle at Carency and suffered temporary blindness. He was trepanned, and required a long period of recuperation. Braque resumed painting in late 1916. Working alone, he began to moderate the harsh abstraction of cubism. He developed a more personal style characterized by brilliant color, textured surfaces, and—after his relocation to the Normandy seacoast—the reappearance of the human figure.