This large and evocative lithograph of a Parisian nightlife scene is one of Nevinson’s most ambitious printed subjects, and it very effectively evokes the clamour and bustle one would have experienced at the Café du Parnasse at the cusp of the 1920s. Nevinson’s closely cropped composition plunges the viewer directly into the midst of the densely-packed crowd of people on the terrace. The close grouping of these glamorous figures creates a lively, almost frantic atmosphere, to which the projecting beams of light that burst across the revelling throng add a dynamic compositional dimension. Sur la Terrasse, Parnasse is indebted to Nevinson's earlier involvement with the Futurist movement, exemplified by the striking diagonals that radiate from the electric lights and the illuminated signs in the background. In the depiction of the crowd itself, the composition owes much to the innovations of artists of the previous generation, such as Degas and Manet, and their understanding and use of photography to instil similarly cropped scenes with a sense of frozen immediacy in the snapshot of a moment.