Montmartre
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 Cœur on its summit. The community on the hill is also called "Montmartre".
Early history
The name Montmartre comes from Mont des Martyrs, so named because the bishop Saint Denis (patron saint of France), the priest Rustique, and the archdeacon Eleuthere were decapitated on the hill around the year 272.
It was on the hill in 1534, that Ignatius Loyola and seven companions took the vows that led to the creation of the Jesuit order.
A large nunnery once stood on the hill. For many years the vineyards and windmills gave Montmartre an air of the country in the middle of Paris.
During the French Revolution it was renamed Montmarat to commemorate the assassinated revolutionary Jean Marat, but it was soon called Montmartre again.
19th century
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.
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 Cœur 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.
Artists gather
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 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.
21st century
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.
Many renowned artists are buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre and the Cimetière Saint-Vincent.
Day and night, tourists visit such sights as the Place du Tertre and the cabaret du Lapin Agile. 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.
Downhill to the southwest is the red-light district of Pigalle.
A funicular railway, the Funiculaire de Montmartre, operated by RATP, ascends the hill from the south.
The area is, today, largely known for a wide variety of adult novelty; from simple multimedia shops to shows to professional courtesans.
See also
Reference
Vie 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.
External link
- The Prophets of Montmartre Ashe Journal article on Montmartre as a cradle of art and innovation by Alamantra.