Montmartre
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Boulevard Montmartre. (1897), a painting by Camille Pissarro of the boulevard that led to Montmartre as seen from his hotel room. |
Montmartre is a hill in the north of
Paris,
France, in the
18th arrondissement, a part of the
Right Bank, primarily known for the white-domed
Basilica of the Sacré CÅ"ur on its summit. The other, older, church on the hill is
Saint Pierre de Montmartre, which claims to be the location at which the
Jesuit order of priests was founded. The community on the hill is also called "Montmartre".
Saint
Denis, a
Christian martyr, the
bishop of Paris and the
patron saint of
France, died around
250 on Montmartre.
Denis was executed by beheading on the highest hill near Paris (now Montmartre), which being the highest hill in the area was also likely to have been a
druidic holy place. The martyrdom of Denis and his companions gave the name of Montmartre, in French literally the mountain of the martyr.
When
Napoleon III and his city planner
Baron Haussmann planned to make Paris the most beautiful city in
Europe, a first step was to grant large sweeps of land near the center of the city to Haussmann's friends and financial supporters. This drove the original inhabitants to the edges of the city — to the districts of
Clichy,
La Villette, and the hill with a view of the city, Montmartre.
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Basilica of the Sacré CÅ"ur, Montmartre, Paris. |
Since Montmartre was outside the city limits, free of Paris taxes and no doubt also due to the fact that the local nuns made wine, the hill quickly became a popular drinking area. The area developed into a center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment at the end of the
19th century and the beginning of the
20th century. In the popular cabaret the
Moulin Rouge, and at
Le Chat Noir, artists, singers and performers regularly appeared including
Yvette Guilbert,
Marcelle Lender,
Aristide Bruant,
La Goulue,
Georges Guibourg,
Mistinguett,
Fréhel,
Jane Avril,
Damia and others.
Basilica of the Sacré CÅ"ur was built on Montmartre from
1876 to
1912 by public subscription as a gesture of expiation after the defeat of
1871 in the
Franco-Prussian War. Its white dome is a highly visible landmark in the city, where just below it artists still set up their easels each day amidst the tables and colorful umbrellas of
Place du Tertre.
At the beginning of his political career, the future French statesman
Georges Clemenceau (
1841–
1929) was mayor of Montmartre.
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Théophile Steinlen's famous advertisement for the tour of the Chat Noir cabaret |
In the mid-
1800s artists, such as
Johan Jongkind and
Camille Pissarro, came to inhabit Montmartre. By the end of the century, Montmartre and its counterpart on the
Left Bank,
Montparnasse, became the principal artistic centers of Paris.
Pablo Picasso,
Amedeo Modigliani, and other impoverished artists lived and worked in a
commune, a building called
Le Bateau-Lavoir during the years
1904–
1909.
Artist associations such as
Les Nabis and the
Incoherents were formed and individuals including
Vincent van Gogh,
Pierre Brissaud,
Alfred Jarry,
Gen Paul,
Jacques Villon,
Raymond Duchamp-Villon,
Henri Matisse,
André Derain,
Suzanne Valadon,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Edgar Degas,
Maurice Utrillo,
Toulouse-Lautrec,
Théophile Steinlen worked in Montmartre and drew some of their inspiration from the area.
The last of the
bohemian Montmartre artists was
Gen Paul (
1895–
1975), born in Montmartre and a friend of Utrillo, Paul's calligraphic expressionist lithographs, sometimes memorializing picturesque Montmartre itself, owe a lot to
Raoul Dufy.
La bohème, released in 1965 by
Charles Aznavour a French singer of
Armenian descent widely popular in France, recalls his youth spent in Montmartre. The song is a farewell to what, according to Aznavour, were the last days of Montmartre as a hub of bohemian activity.
The Musée de Montmartre is in the house where the painter
Maurice Utrillo lived and worked in a second-floor studio. The mansion in the garden at the back is the oldest hotel on Montmartre, and one of its first owners was Claude Roze, also known as Roze de Rosimond, who bought it in
1680. Roze was the actor, who replaced
Molière, and like his predecessor, died on stage. The house was
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's first Montmartre address and many other names moved through the premises.
Just off the top of the butte,
Espace Salvador Dalà showcases
surrealist artist
Salvador DalÃ's work. Nearby, day and night, tourists visit such sights as the artists in
Place du Tertre and the cabaret du
Lapin Agile. Many renowned artists are buried in the
Cimetière de Montmartre and the
Cimetière Saint-Vincent.
The movie
Amélie is set in an exaggeratedly quaint version of contemporary Montmartre.
Montmartre is an officially designated historic district with limited development allowed in order to maintain its historic character.
A
funicular railway, the
Funiculaire de Montmartre, operated by
RATP, ascends the hill from the south while the Montmartre Bus circles the hill.
Downhill to the southwest is the
red-light district of
Pigalle. That area is, today, largely known for a wide variety of
sex shops and prostitutes.
*
Moulin de la GaletteVie quotidienne a Montmartre au temps de Picasso, 1900-1910 (
Daily Life on Montmartre in the Times of Picasso) was written by
Jean-Paul Crespelle, an author-historian who specialized in the artistic life of Montmartre and Montparnasse.
*
The Prophets of Montmartre Ashe Journal article on Montmartre as a cradle of art and innovation by Alamantra.
