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The Artful Gardens of Andre LeNotre

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Posted by in Artists Near Paris, France Travel, Gardens in France, Paris

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400th anniversary of Andre LeNotre

Tuileries decorative sign – 400th Anniversary of Andre LeNotre’s Birth

The Gardens of Andre Le Notre

Stroll along tree shaded paths, gaze at swans trolling the reflecting pools, watch the fountains play. There might be better ways to spend the day in France, but visiting public gardens is one of the most agreeable. And the elegant decorative creations of master landscape architect Andre Le Notre are the ultimate in classic French gardens. Many of Le Notre’s gardens are close to Paris, accessible by metro or RER. And generally, admission is free.  The 400th Anniversary of Andre LeNotre’s birth was celebrated throughout France in 2013.

Tuileries Gardens

Tuileries Gardens, Paris

The Tuileries Gardens

Anyone whose been to Paris knows the Tuileries gardens bounded by Place Concorde and the Seine and right in front of the Louvre. The pebble paths under the lines of trees, the little green folding chairs, the kids, the dogs, the clusters of pensioners in berets, all define the Tuileries. Visitors today experience a refurbished Tuileries Gardens perhaps closer to the original version designed by Le Notre in 1680.

In 1992, the Tuileries were substantially remodeled. Recreating the botanical intentions of Le Notre was the work of Louis Benech and Pascal Cribier, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture to work with architect I. M. Pei.  Changes wrought by city life have altered Le Notre’s original grand vision anyway. The vanishing point in his elaborately detailed vista of the Tuileries became the Champs Elysees.

Information: http://en.parisinfo.com/paris-museum-monument/71304/Jardin-des-Tuileries

The Grand Garden Tradition

Ambling along tree shaded paths, gazing at swans trolling the reflecting pools, watching the fountains play, visitors relax into la bonne vie – the good life.  French national gardens are the ultimate example of exceptionally pleasing environments open to the public.

IMG_7631Le Notre specialized in formal gardens for wealthy chateau owners — dukes, counts and kings, not to mention the mansions and chateaus bestowed on mistresses and paramours of the nobles.

Then, as now, a formal garden expresses grandeur and tames nature in a perhaps misguided and usually futile attempt to demonstrate the power of human will over the natural elements. These 17th century men with money wanted fancy gardens to show off their power. Le Notre obliged them, but he was not a hired hand.  He insisted on following his own vision, incorporating wild spaces into the garden design and creating long vistas. His reliance on lengthened perspective is timeless and especially relevant today with our crowded urban spaces‹h‹ that offer limited viewpoints. Le Notre also figured open areas into his vast panoramas. These days, his graded grass terraces in the parks around Paris are dotted with sunbathers and the open spaces have become sports fields, but the new uses do not diminish Le Notre’s overall vision.
So, take a break from the shopping and sightseeing. Imitate the royalty of times past and stroll through Le Notre’s gardens along paths bordered by yews trimmed into tight inverted cones. Rest for a moment and admire the planted vistas created by Le Notre to draw a visitor’s eyes far into the horizon, the way an artist directs the viewer to a focal point in a painting. Amble in the shade of chestnut trees along the lanes of Versailles, St. Cloud, Seaux, and St. Germaine en Laye. These gardens of Le Notre are near Paris, accessible by Metro or RER, and best of all, admission is free.

Domaine Nationale de Saint Germaine en Laye
The main attraction in the Domaine Nationale de St. Germaine en Laye is the Grande Terrasse, which extends more than 2 kilometers towards Maisons Lafitte, a nearby chateau open to the public. La Terrasse de Le Notre, as it’s also called, is a weekend favorite for Parisians who stroll en famille. Elegant women of a certain age tow their little dogs on leashes. Young couples in the process of discovery hang arms around each other’s necks or share earbuds and digital music.

Solo men lean on the wall and smoke, watching the passing scene. The perambulators at La Terrasse have become more publican since Le Notre created the long walkway for the court of Louis XIV three hundred years ago. Carved out of a forest, the gardens of St. Germaine en Laye feature parterres bordered with beds of shrubs and flowers, circular pools, and broad paths that create diagonal walks from fountain to fountain. The adjacent forest beyond the gates of the formal gardens has extensive paths for aerobic walking.

Overlooking the Seine near the beginning of the Grande Terrasse is the Pavilion Henri IV restaurant. Culinary enthusiasts take note: Sauce Bernaise was created here in 1847 by the chef Collinet in honor of Henri IV who was from the Berne region.
An arch in the wall surrounding the gardens of St. Germaine-en-Laye marks the entrance to the restaurant courtyard. The 3 or 4 course luncheon menu is usually a good value.  Adjacent to the gardens is the Chateau of St. Germaine en Laye, home of the National Museum of Antiquities. King Louis XIV was born in the vast royal palace Chateau Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Information: http://www.parcsetjardins.fr/ile_de_france/yvelines/domaine_national_de_saint_germain_en_laye-943.html

St. Germaine en Laye is 19 kms. west of Paris. The easiest way to get there is by RER line A, stop at St. Germaine.

Versailles

Think of Versailles and scenes of courtiers in the Hall of Mirrors or Marie Antoinette cavorting as a shepherdess come to mind. But Versailles is more than just an awesome palace. For some, the greatest beauty of Versailles is expressed in the gardens of LeNotre.

Le Notre’s immense dramatic experiment in taming nature, pruning and stretching the flora to fit his personal vision was an innovation for garden design. Other landscape designers have contributed to Versailles and fortunately for us, their collective vision was so comprehensive and grand that it discouraged modern tampering and the vistas have remained mostly intact.
If the lines of tourists waiting to tour the Chateau at Versailles are long, and they nearly always are, walk steadily past them, right through the arcade that marks the edge of the gardens. Inside the formal gardens, the flower beds, topiary yews and ankle-high hedges are resemble embroidery on the lawns. Those with more stamina and curiosity should push onward, down into the endless tree-bordered lanes, to the meadows, the canals and quasi-wild patches of woods that compose the grand Parc de Versailles.

Information: http://www.chateauversailles.fr/gardens-and-park-of-the-chateau-

Versailles is accessible by train on the RER C line with Paris – Versailles Rive Gauche zones 1-4  ticket.  (T+ ticket is not accepted on this route).

SNCF trains arrive at the Versailles Chantiers station leaving from Paris Montparnasse Station. SNCF trains arrive at Versailles Rive Droite Station leaving from  Paris Saint Lazare Station.

Seaux

Le Notre’s intimate masterwork, Seaux, is a cathedral of the outdoors. The long nave has its axis at the fountains. The hills stretch out as far as the eye can see because Le Notre’s restructuring of the land creates a foreshortening that fills the visual panorama. The eyes seem to accelerate as they scan the view. The gardens at Seaux are punctuated with tidy reference points — triangular tipped firs, blooming roses at the corners of the paths — that keep the roving eye engaged.
Much of Seaux has been remade; these are not the benches and stairs constructed in the 17th century. And where the high and mighty once amused themselves, couples with frisbees and dogs leap past sunbathers.

In the woods, a man and a woman are practicing martial moves with long poles, flipping the poles behind their heads around to the front and to the ground. Glimpsed through the alleys of trees their shadows play double and suggest Medieval jousters.

Information: http://domaine-de-sceaux.hauts-de-seine.net

Seaux is a station on the southbound RER line. The entrance is about a 10 minute walk from the station. Although Metro tickets are accepted into RER turnstiles, it is imperative that an RER ticket be used. Attempting to exit using a Metro ticket at an RER station invites a substantial fine. Its proximity to Paris makes Seaux a popular weekend destination.

Parc St. Cloud
From the heights of Parc de St. Cloud, one can see the landmarks of the Paris skyline: Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, and the new office towers in La Defense. The park is built on a palisade on the banks of the Seine. Famous for Le Notre’s waterworks and cascades, St. Cloud attracts city dwellers in search of respite from summer heat.

Cars are permitted in part of the park which alters the feel of Le Notre’s self-contained garden universe. There are huge distances to traverse in the park, and cars make the outer reaches more accessible but vehicles are intrusive, especially if the radios are blaring. Seek instead the dark woodsy interiors, where one can look across tree lined alleys to open green spaces or stand on the expansive green lawns and look into the forest spaces. There are stands of perfectly aligned trees which create interesting geometric shadows.

Information: http://saint-cloud.monuments-nationaux.fr

To get there, take Bus 72 from the center of Paris and descend after the bridge over the Seine. Or, take the Metro to Porte St. Cloud station and walk across the bridge following signs to the pedestrian crossing to Parc St. Cloud. Opening and closing times vary depending on the month.

Fontainebleau.

The gardens encompass 130 hectares.  Visitors can explore the gardens on their own.  Activities such as horse-drawn carriage rides, jeu de paume (real tennis) games, Segway rides, boating and hot-air balloon trips are offered for a fee.  Those who also want to tour the chateau should plan an all-day visit.  

Of particular interest to followers of Andre LeNotre is the Grand Parterre, the largest formal garden in Europe. Le Nôtre created these gardens between 1660 and 1664 along with Louis Le Vau. It was Louis XIV’s great achievement at Fontainebleau. While some features such as the original box hedge work in the formal garden were lost under Louis XV, the layout of the herb gardens remains.  The water features elaborately complimented with statues are also intact, such as the Bassin des Cascades (17th and 19th centuries).

Information: http://www.musee-chateau-fontainebleau.fr/spip.php?lang=en

Vaux le Vicomte

If Vaux le Vicomte seems familiar, it is.  The quintessential French Chateau has been featured in many films and television shows, fashion and travel advertising spreads.

At Vaux le Vicomte, Le Notre stretched his vision. This was the first time gardens were planned with symmetry on the grand scale.  Standing on the stone steps behind the Chateau, we followed Le Notre’s cultivated gestures down the staged terracess to the traversal pool and up the hill to the vanishing point on the horizon a mile away.  By restructuring the grade, Le Notre expressed  an overall ordering and conquering of nature, the hallmark of his era.

Nicolas Fouquet, finance minister for Louis XIV, commissioned Le Notre and gave the budding landscape designer his head.Fouquet never got the chance to enjoy the estate; he was dismissed from his post, then  recalled.  Finished the gardens in 1661.

The trees are severely cut back to retain their shape.  Eighty years old in 1991, they have been replaced many times since Le Notre’s time. Cut to a triangular cone shape, the boxwood at the corners where paths intersect defines the squares of lawn. When viewed from a distance, the knobbed boxwood punctuating the estate looks like chess pieces in play on a board.  Intricate weave of low hedgery.

During the long walk back, a tour of the perimeter and cross paths is more than 2 miles, we speculated that the after dinner stroll kept the nobles lean. As you face the Chateau at the lower traversal pool where the swans parade, on the right there is a path tunneled through a strip of woods that ends at the chateau. To reach the path, go up the staircase at the extreme end of the pool to a cleared area on top with two rows of topped off trees constructed into an arbor that gives excellent shade in the summer. The path runs parallel to the formal gardens and through the branches one can observe people strolling in the gardens.    The opportunity to survey tamed nature from behind a veil of trees left intentionally wild is exactly the kind of romantic juxtaposition that amused Le Notre’s social contemporaries. Whether the nature path was part of Le Notre’s plan is not clear, but indeed he would have enjoyed the horticultural joke.

Privately owned, this is said to be the most attentively restored of Le Notre’s efforts.    Address 7 Chateau de Vaux le Vicomte, Maincy. Candlelit tours and other events are available. Tickets purchased online are reduced price.

Information: http://www.vaux-le-vicomte.com/en/preparer-votre-visite-en/visits-for-individuals

Open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from 9th March until 11th November 2014.
On 29th and 30th November; On 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th December and from 20th December 2014 until the 4th January 2015. Closed on 25th December and 1st January.

Maintenon

The Chateau de Maintenon is 18 kms from Chartres. It was the private home of Madame de Maintenon, the second spouse of Louis XIV.  With the able guidance of  LeNotre, the park and gardens were designed by Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon.  The garden is small so you can easily tour it without a guide.  Middle ages era structure was enlarged after Madame de Maintenon purchased it in 1675.   Schematic drawings of the unfinished aqueduct designed by Vauban to carry water from the Eure River to Versailles may be on display and finished pillars of the aqueduct dominate one end of the property.

Information: http://www.chateaudemaintenon.fr/en

Chateau de Maintenon, Place Aristide Briand, 28130 Maintenon, Eure et Loir.  Opening and closing times vary depending on the season and day of the week.

Brothels and Dance Halls :: A Walk On the Steamy Side of Art

Friday, February 1, 2013

Posted by in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Writers in Italy

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http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

No walk through the artist’s Montmartre would be complete without mentioning the louche side. Along with the tax free drinking, brothels catering to every combination and whimsy dotted the streets around Place Blanche, Pigalle, and Montmartre. Not much has changed in the 21st century, though the tax-free status has surely vanished. Back in the day, these areas were outside of the urban center so a devil-may-care attitude towards regulatory authority prevailed.

A belle époque facade barely visible at 72, Blvd. de Rochechouart bears witness to the passions and frolics of the gay nineties. Today, that address is the L’Elysee Montmartre, nightclub.  Opened in 1881, the Chat Noir, 84 rue de Rochechouart was a favorite haunt close to the brothel at 2 rue de Steinkerque where Toulouse-Lautrec struggled with the effects of the absinthe that contributed to his deteriorating health and possibly, his early death at 36. After the last bistro closed for the morning, he would wrest a few more hours of fun sketching and painting the femmes of the night.

An industrious tramp around the area reveals only a few facades, art nouveau colored glass windows and a vintage wrought iron canopy over a doorway on rue Steinkerque, precious few traces of those earlier risque tenants. Among the cloth dealers and discount stores offering cheap household goods and shoes, it’s possible to spot some professionals, but the ostrich plumes and silk chemises worn in the opulent privacy of a brothel depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec have given way to fake fur and fishnet on the street.

Brothels are not enduring establishments, so the nightspots that provided subject matter for Toulouse-Lautrec in the rue d’Amboise or rue des Moulins,  and in rue Joubert are long gone. Toulouse-Lautrec was fond of spending time in the Lesbian bar, La Souris, in rue Breda,  now named rue Henri Menticer. His many eloquent pastels of the women are at the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, his birthplace in south-west France.

The cafe-restaurant Le Grande Pinte, at number 28, ave. Trudaine, was founded in 1879 and was a neighborhood meeting place for many artists.  It is still a restaurant, Le Paprika.  In the 1980s, the place was called La Bouche Riche; names change, but the place remains.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Englishman at the Moulin Rouge by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.

When known as Le Grande Pinte, Andre Gill, Carjat and the future King Edward VII supped there and the decor simulated themes from the Middle Ages, echoing the fascination of the English Pre-Raphaelite painters and poets for anything Medieval. The main floor of Le Grande Pinte was a cabaret founded by Laplace, a former art dealer.  For a while, the cabaret was called l’Ane Rouge.  The Prince of Wales was a frequent and dedicated visitor to the brothels in the quarter.

Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec in Place Pigalle Neighborhood

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec shifted his attention to the Moulin Rouge, 82 Boulevard de Clichy, when the can‑can dancers became all the rage in the 1890s. Dozens of dancers still kick their booties to the rafters on the Moulin Rouge stage, the “greatest cabaret in the world.”

Steps away, rue Frochot, which runs between Place Pigalle and rue Victor Masse,  was home to the Dihau family at number 6.  Monsieur Désiré Dihau, the family patriarch, was a cousin of Toulouse-Lautrec.  The artist designed and illustrated the covers of published new songs by Désiré Dihau, who was a bassoonist with the Paris Opera

Side view of a man in dark 19th c. top hat and coat, seated in a garden, reading a newspaper.

Désiré Dihau. painted by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Orchestra. Toulouse-Lautrec painted his portrait at least twice.  Edgar Degas also painted M. Dihau.

Toulouse-Lautrec was a frequent visitor their third floor flat at number 6, rue Frochot, a small cream-colored building, now with a theater at street level.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s last art studio was at number 15 ave. Frochot,  a private tree-shaded cul-de-sac that takes its name from rue Frochat which is nearly parallel.  Elaborate locked wrought iron and stained glass doors secure this enticing street with an artistic history.

Ave Frochot Paris

Iron gates to private street in Paris.

Gate to ave. Frochot, Paris 9eme.

Famous residents of the gated street (or its more travelled namesake – sources are difficult to verify)  include Alexandre Dumas (père) and Apollonie Aglaé Sabatier, a friend of the poet Baudelaire.  Victor Masse, the composer, died at number 1 ave. Frochot, which is partly visible from outside the secured gates.

 

Artists knocked on the door of the third and fourth floor studio-museum-apartment duplex at 37, rue Victor Masse just off ave. Trudaine. They sought the advice and approval of the master.  His friends, the painters Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, visited to discuss their evolving styles and exploration into other genres.  Degas also regularly spent time with the Manet-Morisot family in Passy, then a suburb of Paris, now the 16th arrondissement.

Degas moved to number 6, Blvd. de Clichy, where he died September 26, 1917 at the age of 83.  A short film of Edgar Degas walking in Paris in 1914 is available on YouTube.

Degas is buried in Montmartre Cemetery, (20, ave. Rachel or walk down the steps from rue Caulaincourt) in Division 4 along ave. Montebello, one of several streets inside the Cemetery.

François Truffaut grave stone in Montmartre Cemetery.

François Truffaut grave stone in Montmartre Cemetery.

 

Company there includes Zola, Berlioz, Offenbach, Heinrich Heine, the artist Fragonard and 20th c. film director Francois Truffaut.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died at the Chateau de Malromé
in the Gironde on September 9, 1901 at the age of 36. He was buried about 2 kilometers from the Chateau in the cemetery at Verdelais.

A Walk in Montparnasse

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Posted by in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Artists' Graves, Hotels in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France, Writers in France

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Walking Around Montparnasse, Paris

The name was a bit of a joke, a sly reference to Mont Parnassas, the highest point near Delphi, mythic seat of the god Apollo and the Muses, inspiration of poetry and song.  The topography south of the Seine is considerably flatter than Delphi, but the high-minded notion matched the aspirations of the writers and painters who scrambled to Paris to follow their muse.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that Montparnasse suffered the contractions and upheavals that changed parts of the right bank so radically during the 19th century.  When the boulevard construction directed by Baron  Haussmann churned neighborhoods on the right bank, Montparnasse was too sleepy to be included in the revamping.  The hidden neighborhoods, rustic stables and factory lofts offered quarters an artist could afford well into the 1960’s.  But then, the post World War II boom claimed low-rise blocks for office towers, shopping centers and transportation hubs, a process that accelerated during the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Some of the artists’ hideaways in Montparnasse still exist, despite construction of office towers, roads and apartment complexes.  Recently, a friend and I discovered an impasse off Ave. du Maine, one of those dead-end alleys lined with artists’ studios and galleries.  We were in search of a photo exhibition announced in ‘Time Out Paris,’ but the show was still being hung and not yet open to the public.  Instead, we prowled along the passageway, peeking into vacant studios, eyeing the one used by a floral arranging business and wondering what type of social pull it took to rent one of these historic spots. Surely, we realized, this was the same artists’ courtyard at 21, Ave. du Maine where Marie Vassilieff opened her studio as a canteen for artists in 1915.  Vassilieff served soup, dinners, fellowship and a helping hand during the terrible war years.

La Ruche, Artists' Studios. Montparnasse, Paris

La Ruche, Artists’ Studios. Montparnasse, Paris

Another remnant still standing is the curious building called La Ruche.  An early artists’ collective, La Ruche, (‘the Hive’) hides in the rue de Dantzig  (Metro: Convention, 15th arr.) a studio-refuge for artists and artisans.  The space was inaugurated in 1902 by Alfred Boucher who had salvaged small round wooden structures made by Gustave Eiffel for the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. The recycled wooden buildings were remade into miniscule studios stacked on top of each other.

Art Academies and Immigrants

Montparnasse was a neighborhood for art students, dealers and shops selling pigments and other supplies for the students enrolled in nearby art academies.  Henri Matisse opened an art academy in 1908 at 33 Blvd. des Invalides.  Matisse was a busy teacher, impresario and artists during those years.

The Colarossi School, established in the 1870’s, took over the Academy Suisse and moved to the courtyard of 10 rue de la Grande Chaumiere.  The Academy Julian differed from other art academies: women were admitted to the school and permitted to draw nude males in life study studio classes.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

During the years of revolution, hardship and war, Paris provided the flame of salvation for Europe’s refugees.  As the city of light and reason, the city drew immigrants from troubled countries to the east, people fleeting from failing monarchies, war and repressive governments.

Some left the Russia and the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I.  During the war and following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the floodgates opened to immigrants.  An international wave of immigrants from dozens of countries arrived after the Armistice in November, 1918 bringing artists, sculptors, writers and political poets.  The international community settled in Montparnasse. A list of these artists reads like a museum collection: Chagall, Dobrinsky, Epstein, Rivera, Matisse, Leger, Modigliani, Laurencin. Some are lesser known:  Indenbaum and the Polish-born Moise Kisling form the nucleus of the Ecole de Paris, the melting pot of all the refugees and émigrés.

Writers who lived in Paris at the time note in their memoirs that  Montparnasse was different after World War I.  The streets were lit up with

theater and cinema marquees.  The “Triangle of Gold of Montparnasse,” as it was called, was marked by three beacon-cafes: La Closerie des Lilas, La Rotonde and Le Dome.

While the big cafes attracted big spenders, the artists hung out there too.   When La Coupole opened, people wandered in and out round the clock.  La Rotonde attracted art dealers, writers, journalists and politicians.  Modigliani frequented Le Dome café intent on selling drawings to anyone with money.  Henry Miller caged meals from friends who willingly bought him dinner for his entertaining conversation.

Paris Cafe. Photo © P. Mikelbank

Paris Cafe. Photo © P. Mikelbank

The cafes became second homes for the artists and writers who didn’t have the space, seats or heat to accommodate clutches of friends.  Exhibitions were organized in the cafes to attract customers and newspaper attention.  The first exposition in a cafe was organized by Auguste Clerge, in the Cafe du Parnasse.  At just about the same time, a group of artist friends organized a show in Montmarte and in a Latin Quarter cafe called la Comete.  Cafe Petit Napolitain mounted a show called “Boite a Couleurs” and another show was held at Cameleon.  Once these art shows in cafes proved the artists could make a little money and the cafe owners would increase traffic, other cafes followed suit.

In due time, dealers snapped up the work of the best artists.  One of the most successful gallery owners, Berthe Weill steadily expanded her clientele, befriending artists and clients in the grand cafes. At first working out of her home, she moved through successive stores in rue Victor Masse, rue Taitbout and rue Lafitte. Showing women artists as well as men, she celebrated her 25th anniversary in 1926 when her artists held a huge fete for her at Dagorno.

Zadkine Museum, 100 bis, rue d’Assas, in the 6th arrondisment, demonstrates that even as late as the 1920’s and 1930’s there were areas of Montparnasse with real gardens, stately trees and outbuildings.  Cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine constructed a folly in the backyard atelier, his sylvan corner in the middle of Montparnasse.

The neighborhood revolved around the Gare Montparnasse.  Trains departing this station headed to Brittany so it’s no surprise that the artists who lived in Montparnasse turned to the Atlantic for en plein air painting during the 1880’s and afterwards.  The Bretons and other western country people brought their fish and victuals to the city.  Bistro de la Gare, 59 Blvd. Montparnasse dates to that time period, with Art Nouveau features that gave it a place on the historic monuments registry.

 

Footsteps of the Artists: Mary Blume Observes

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Posted by in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Shopping in Paris

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Paris Travel notes from:  A French Affair by Mary Blume

When I read this charming book about living in France years ago, I scribbled a page of notes on places and people covered in her book that I’d like to know more about.  Though Blume was a Paris-based correspondent a while ago,  the subjects are timeless. I found contemporary information online for all the topics in my notes.

Down and Out in Paris?

Soupe Populaire on Rue Clément, near Mabillon metro, is a  cafeteria for the poor,  the homeless, vagabonds, nomads and those who can make a small donation. 

Places to Go

A vineyard still exists in Montmartre at Clos Montmartre.  And there are other wine makers growing the grapes in the city for micro production.  The wine  sold at Cafe Mélac, 42 Rue León Frot comes from grapes produced by vines embracing the bistro.   Jacques Mélac is the proprietor who makes Paris-grown wine with the “Château-Charonne” label.

La Balajo – Founded in 1936, it was once a bal-musette / apache bar, then a nighclub where Edith Piaf sang.  Then it became a disco at  9,  rue de Lappe near Bastille.

Paris Shopping Tips

* Dehillerin for the best selection of kitchen utensils.

* Madeleine Gely for umbrellas, Blvd. St. Germain.  Now owned by a different family than the founder, but dedicated to the same principles of quality and service.

* Tang Brothers, in 7 locations, are comprehensive, immense Asian supermarkets.

Some Parisian Creatives

Classic Vionnet bias cut draped dress.

Classic Vionnet bias cut draped dress.

Mme. Madeleine Vionnet invented the bias cut clothing trend in the 1920s, freeing women from corsets and constriction. Her fashion design atelier began on rue de Rivoli in 1912.  She moved the company Vionnet to ave. Montaigne later. During the 1930s, she dressed Dietrich, Garbo and Hepburn. Several declines and revivals followed, the most recent in 2009.

Thérèse Bonney was an American photographer who was an

Thérèse Bonney, American photo-journalist during WWII in France.

Thérèse Bonney, American photo-journalist during WWII in France.

active photo-journalist during World War II and lived in Paris until her death in 1978.  She documented the impact of war on children and women, sneaking into the countryside to report the horror of war.  Bonney said: “I go forth alone, try to get the truth and then bring it back and try to make others face it and do something about it.”

Painter Auguste Renoir is well known, but his model Jeanne Samary is not so famous.

Jeanne Samary, actress and artist's model. Portrait by Félix Nadar, 1877.

Jeanne Samary, actress and artist’s model. Portrait by Félix Nadar, 1877.

He painted her often between 1877-1880 while she sought publicity to advance her acting career.  A decade later, Renoir married Aline Victorine Charigot in 1890, with whom he had already had one child prior to Jean, who was born in a stone house in Montmartre, near Sacre-Coeur Basilica, which wasn’t yet completed in 1894.  Jean Renoir, the son, directed films and for a long time lived on a hidden, tree lined street in Pigalle against the blackened remains of wall between the old boundaries of Paris and the open hunting grounds of Montmartre. He died in Los Angeles in 1979.

Montmartre Up :: Pigalle Down

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Posted by in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Artists Near Paris, Artists' Graves, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France

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Throughout the Belle Epoque, Pigalle, the neighborhood at the foot of Montmarte hill,

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautred, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

was the place to go for cheap nightlife. Pigalle and Montmartre still have a reputation for providing any kind of excitement for hire.

Back then the village was a mix of local folks and artists, writers and noisy upstarts who wrote poetry or music or manifestos.  The lot of them were anarchists to the bourgeois. Down on the streets of Pigalle or high up on Montmartre, the artists’ eccentric behavior, erratic hours and street parties were tolerated, even encouraged.  Who was to stop them, anyway?

Gaining definition after the Revolution, Montmartre was created a jurisdiction in 1790 with 400 residents. By 1857 there were 36,000 citizens in the village and it was annexed by Paris three years later, in 1860. Baron Haussmann’s grand boulevards opened the densely populated urban areas of the city below and made public transit feasible. But the steep hill of Montmartre  remained relatively untouched until construction on Sacre-Coeur Basilica began in 1875. The economic constraints and political disarray left after the Franco-Prussion War and the Paris Commune in 1871 played a role in slowing down the hell-bent passions of artists lured to Montmartre.  Later in the 20th century, after World War II, visitors to the massive Basilica with the striking mosque-like towers and bulbous white dome spilled into the artist’s quarter of Montmarte, bringing the by-products of tourism with them.

The streets were narrow and twisting, lined with worker’s houses and small shops. Even today, Montmarte’s alleys and streets defy a grid system, curving to fit topography or the clusters of former farm houses. The neighborhood was changed radically by the end of the first world war when the cathedral was completed.

Artists and budding photographers searched for village characters as subjects. Montmarte magnified the simple country life with the noble windmills and rustic villagers. Above the city, away from the bourgeoisie,  Montmarte also  embraced 19th century sexual libertine mores in the free-wheeling cabarets filled with comely jeune filles.

In Hippolyte Bayard’s photographs, the most extensive visual record of mid-19th century Montmarte available, the windmills dominate the horizon. Green patches are squeezed between rustic shuttered houses, shops and music halls. Laundry hangs out of upper windows. The white dust from the quarry covers the cobblestones.

To follow the footsteps of the 19th and early 20th century artists in Montmarte, start at the vineyard, rue des Saules and rue St. Vincent. The same vines were there when Vincent Van Gogh trudged up the hill to his favorite dance hall in the rue Rustique. And when the dwarf legged Toulouse-Lautrec stumbled along, tapping his cane on the paving stones, ears filled with brassy cabaret notes of the Moulin de la Galette or the Moulin Rouge, the scent of the sweating can-can girls in his nose.  A plaque in the vineyard honors Poulbot (1879-1946) who painted the children who tended the vines.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

Push open the door at 22, rue de Saules. Imagine the racket at the Lapin Agile a hundred years ago! Glasses clink, palms slap wooden tables, hoots of laughter, songs born in a surfeit of drink and rebellion.  And what a mix of languages – French, Italian, English, German, Catalan, Dutch, Russian.

Inside, Andre Gill decorated the walls with paintings and posters about the crimes of Troppman, a Second Empire renegade, who became a popular hero.  Outside, the old sign of an amusing rabbit jumping into a cookpot and holding a bottle of wine has endured till this day. With so many writers and artists, some of whom called themselves the Apaches in sympathy with Native Americans, with brilliant wordsmiths like Verlaine and Rimbaud hanging out there, we can assume jokes and stories flew fast.  Huddled at a corner table, they might kid the barmaid: Was the owner Madame Adele,  Monsieur Gill’s agile rabbit, or he, her’s?

Aristide Bruant, the innovative singer, journalist, publisher and activist, bought the cabaret in 1903.  Not long afterwards, customers flocked to Lapin Agile from Cabaret Zut in neighboring Place Emile Goudeau, Bruant also persuaded the famous Frede away from Zut to work at the Lapin Agile.   The artists frequented places where they knew they could speak freely and run a line of credit.

The Bateau-Lavoir, which burned in 1970, but has been restored, contained several artists’ studios.  Picasso, Brraque, Gris and others worked there and the site is considered the birthplace of Cubism.  Picasso and his Spanish friends and anarchists carried on the boho tradition in Montmartre until WWI with a cast of characters that included the writers Max Jacob and Apollinaire.  Early in his career, Picasso painted on the walls of Lapin Agile; did he talk the owner into settling a bar bill with a mural?

Artists met their models through their friends and congregated in the guinguettes and cafes.  An enterprising young lady in need of employment might plant herself in a cafe and ‘interview’ prospective employers.

One such mademoiselle was Suzanne Valadon, a part time model beginning to try her hand at painting. Suzanne cut a unique path through the established method of learning to paint; she did not hunch over a palate in the Louvre copying the canvases of great painters past. Following her instincts, she developed a strong individual hand. Degas admired her early drawings and the two artists became life-long friends.

Valadon had been an acrobatic dancer, but a fall that injured her back cut short that career. Her first serious modeling assignment was for Puvis de Chavannes. Work with Renoir followed. Both met her at the Cabaret des Assassins (later, the Lapin Agile).

Maurice Utrillo Tomb, St. Vincent Cemetery, Montmartre

Maurice Utrillo Tomb, St. Vincent Cemetery, Montmartre

Valadon herself was a child of Montmartre and grew up on Blvd. Rochechouart. Crossing Montmartre to see friends, visit her studio, buy food and supplies, sometimes she took the quickest route and cut through the small Cemetery of St. Vincent where her artist son Maurice Utrillo would be buried in 1955.

Montmartre’s church of St. Peter, at Place du Tertre, founded as a monastery during the Middle Ages, has a cornerstone laid in 1133 by Dame Adelaide of Savoie, Queen of France and wife of King Louis VI. Over the centuries, the church has been a Benedictine Abbey and a parish church. Architectural enrichments include Roman columns, remnants from a temple that likely once graced the site, vaulting from the 1400’s and Romanesque walls with stained glass windows. St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is believed to have vowed to create the order while in this church. A tile plaque near the entrance honors “Notre Dame de Montmartre, Notre Dame de Beaute, patronne des artistes.”

The church holds much of Suzanne Valadon’s history. Like many French women of her time and class, she was seriously devout and attended mass daily during the last decades of her life. Her funeral procession left from St. Peter’s.

Whatever her early indiscretions, Valadon drank deeply of life’s pleasures and used her talents wisely. Through the early years of the 20th century, mother and son lived in rue Tourlaque where Toulouse-Lautrec had a studio for some time.  Some say the Toulouse-Lautrec and Valadon were lovers, more likely they were devoted friends.

Antique postcard of 12 rue Cortot, Montmartre.

Antique postcard of 12 rue Cortot, Montmartre.

By the mid 1920’s, Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon, and the rest of their family lived at 12 rue Cortot, now the Museum of Montmartre.  Paintings and memorabilia in the museum show the life of an artist in the quarter and especially as it played out in cafes and cabarets.

Many artists lived or worked at 12 rue Cortot over the decades, including Renoir and Emile Bernard and later, the fauvist painter Raoul Dufy.  Emile Bernard never achieved the popularity or fame of his colleagues, though he started painting under Fernand Cormon’s direction and befriended Gauguin and Van Gogh. Emile Bernard painted with Gauguin during the summer of 1886 in Pont-Aven, Brittany and with Van Gogh the following year at Asnieres where Van Gogh took a studio.

Place du Tertre, Montmartreen.wikipedia.com

Place du Tertre, Montmartre
en.wikipedia.com

By the early decades of the 1900’s, the artists and writers had expanded their turf, and many shifted to Montparnasse. Bohemian Montmarte of the 1920’s continued the libertine tradition.  Artists still worked there because even into the 1960’s, Montmarte rooms were cheap, an artist’s urban paradise.  Radical innovators from all over the globe flocked to Paris, every artist’s hometown.

Behind this simacrulum of artists at work there are remnants of the history of artists who once lived in Montmarte.  The rents are far too steep for artists to live or work there now.  And the vendors at the easles in Place du Tetre are mostly just window-dressing to create an artistic atmosphere to please the tourists.

Walking Resources – Map of Montmartre

Toulouse-Lautrec in Montmartre

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Posted by in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France, Writers in France

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http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Englishman at the Moulin Rouge by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, along with Maurice Utrillo, is the epitome of a Montmartre artist. He is identified with the lifestyle and painted the scenes and people that are icons of  Montmartre. He drowned his health in the pleasurable toxins so readily available in Montmartre.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithograph posters, paintings, pastels and drawings depict the dance hall girls, the chanteuses, the whores and waiters and their customers, the haute bourgeois or visitors from more tightly laced societies like England and the United States.

Breaking away from his colleagues, Toulouse-Lautrec honed his drawing skills and pioneered innovative techniques using empty space, color and stark lines, as bold as the subjects he followed so closely.  He loved the performers, the dancers, prostitutes and pleasure prowlers of the belle epoque.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

Early in his career he studied with other young artists with Fernand Cormon in the Cormon’s atelier-school at 10 rue Constance.  He met artist Louis Anquetin, who was interested in subjects that attracted Toulouse-Lautrec.

For a while, Toulouse-Lautrec lived at 19, bis rue Fontaine with Rene Grenier and Lily Grenier, a model for Edgar Degas who had a studio in the same building. The courtyard at 19 is still bathed in sunlight and there is a line of low studio rooms on the left. No official plaque reports that Toulouse‑ Lautrec and the Grenier couple lived there, however.

In 1887, Toulouse-Lautrec left Cormon’s instruction and took his own space at 27 rue Caulaincourt where Dr. Henri Bourges, a childhood friend, lived. Toulouse-Lautrec stayed with him until the doctor married in 1893.  A few years later, when Toulouse-Lautrec’s health was clearly declining, his mother rented an apartment in Rue de Douai to give him a proper home.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

At number 30, rue Fontaine, not far from the Grenier residence, Toulouse-Lautrec rented a room in 1896 while he painted in a studio at rue Tourlaque shared with Suzanne Volquin. The crumbling facade at  number 30 would have been a bourgeoisie building at that time.   The Academy Julian was founded in 1868 by painter Rodolphe Julian, and the first to permit women as students. American impressionist Lilla Cabot Perry and Russian-born Marie Bashkirtseff were students.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautred, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Toulouse-Lautrec shifted his attention to the Moulin Rouge, 82 Boulevard de Clichy, when the can‑can became all the rage in the 1890’s. Dozens of can-can dancers still kick up a storm on the Moulin Rouge stage, billed as the “greatest cabaret in the world.”

Flirting in the Literary Cafes of Paris

Friday, June 15, 2012

Posted by in Artists in Paris, France Travel, Paris, Restaurants in Paris

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The Literary Cafes of Paris Welcome You!

Once upon a nineteenth century, the urban cafe was the place to be. Business, love, the business of love, and affairs of commerce took place in cafes, in full view of the world,  steps from the street.  Many of the cafes are enclosed now with a sound-proof glass between the cafe sitter and the exhaust fumes and passers-by. But inside, with a strong dose of imagination and a sense of history, the Parisian literary cafe mood stews the same scene.

You can sit where the greats once sipped, but to find where tomorrow’s ecrivans are penning, you have to plunge deep into la vie Boheme. Sometimes you’ll find a grimey smoke filled cafe just around the corner from the preserved banquettes that held the shanks of Fitzgerald, Miller, Nin, Flanner, Liebling or Sartre. Sometimes you’ll see a tweedy type with Hemingway’s bulk is still there, as I saw upstairs at Cafe de Flore, editing galley proofs with a fountain pen and sipping whiskey.

Interior of Le Train Bleu Restaurant
at Gare de Lyon.

During the cocktail hour at Le Train Bleu a gloriously guilt-free gilded expanse in the Gare de Lyon (20 Blvd Diderot),  people pose for each other killing time before a train departs, while covertly eyeing who is coming and going. A Japanese man dressed in a cape and suede boots converses intensely with a companion, a trio of German women dieted to fit their thigh-hugging cigarette pants tea and compare the day’s shopping victories. A Marlboro man in leather studies stocks or sports on an iPad.

Brasserie Lipp 1930s

Across town on the Left Bank, the neon and colored tubular glass signs of Brasserie Lipp advertise with jittery color. Just opposite Lipp is the Cafe de Flor, a good place to watch the passing scene sitting behind the broad glass windows.

Upstairs at Cafe Flore, away from the cafe society, a writer in tweeds sits alone and

Cafe de Flore

makes notations on book galleys with a fountain pen. He’s a throwback to the time when political writers crafted manifestos and experimental litterateurs scribbled their thoughts. To the time when Picasso doodled on matchbooks and Sartre confided his quest for a new lover to the understanding ear of Simone de Beauvoir. Cafe Flore’s menu includes sandwiches, snacks, omelettes and salads, some breakfast items, pastries and ice cream, and of course a variety of beverages, from cafe creme to a bottle of Dom Perignon.

Down at Harry’s New York Bar, sank rue Daw-Noo, (5 rue Daunou) it dosen’t take too long a leap of imagination to transform the hunched hacks at the bar into latterday Hemingways, Janet Flanners or Ben Bradlees — journalists and editors serving time in the trenches of Paris.  Pity them not.

Harry’s Bar has been a hangout for Americans in Paris for nearly a century, a place where they could feel at home, stop for a moment and toss back a bourbon or a brew.

I got there around three in the afternoon, after lunch, before the commuter crowd. Inside the curtain that screens the street, a shade of gold suffuses the room, the gold of money and wood aged by many seasons of cigarette smoke and whiskey breath. Harry’s is a bar where men can be men and women can hunt them. A long legged habitue scans the want ads in the Herald Tribune.  She could read it digitally, but where’s the atmosphere and fun in that?

At the opposite end of the limites of the downtown core is picture-perfect Place des Vosges. Said to be the oldest square in Paris, it has been restored and claimed by upscale designers. The wind is cut by the well proportioned houses that line the sides of the square. A secondary line of tended trees muffles noise froum outside the compound. Inside the square the visual range spells sophisticated life, and the calm is all encompassing.

Dozens of famous and extraordinary people have lived here. Madame de Sevigne, a writer and literary figure, was born in one house on the square. The houses on the square perimeter were residences of famous moneyed Parisians of the last century.  Victor Hugo’s house is diagonally across from Ma Bourgogne restaurant where steak and fries are menu staples.  Open every day from 8 in the morning to 1 a.m. the next morning, this is a restaurant that aims to please local sensibilities and visitors from around the planet. By 2 p.m. on a Sunday, French couples are already into their second luncheon course. Writers and students sit outside nursing a pot of tea and reading in the pale winter light reflected in the bleached red brick.

Hotel Sully
1901

Hotel Sully, a grand historic mansion, anchors one corner of Place de Vogues. Vaulted passages around the square shelter galleries, offices and ateliers of famous designers.

Le Procope Restaurant

The oldest surviving and active cafe in Paris is Le Procope (13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie).  The tracks of time and re-decoration may have made the restaurant-cafe more polished and slick than when Benjamin Franklin hung out there with his liberty-loving friends.

The cafe is still a place to pause and contemplate the world gone by, to write about it or just stare at the passing scene. People also pass time sitting in cafes to be seen, to feel part of the background life of a city, no longer a tourist or visitor.  The ticket for a seat at the edge of the world’s stage with a front row view costs only the price of a decently pulled espresso.

Address Book:

Le Train Bleu, inside Gare de Lyon, 20 Blvd. Diderot, Metro: Gare de Lyon.

Harry’s New York Bar, 5 rue Daunou, Metro: Opera.

Ma Bourgogne, 19 Place des Vosges, Metro: St. Paul.

Cafe de Flore, 172 Blvd. St. Germain, Metro: St. Germain-des-Pres.

Brasserie Lipp, 151 Blvd. St. Germain, Metro: St.Germain-des-Pres.

Le Procope, 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comedie,  Metro: Odeon.

Literary Cafes :: Cafe de la Paix

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Posted by in France Travel, Paris, Restaurants in Paris

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Cafe de la Paix, 5 Place de l’Opera.

Metro: Opera

Cafe de la Paix Coaster.

Well dressed, well preserved matrons meet each other for tea at tables facing the Paris Opera. Suave men of a certain age hide behind Le Monde or their iPads and eye the mirrored reflections of the sleek young genderless. The afternoon crowd at Cafe de la Paix is so discreet as it checks out who is sipping and sitting with or without whom.

If Booth Tarkington or Henry James edged through the palm trees, faux marble tables and rattan chairs today, hardly anyone would notice. Today, just as during the Belle Epoque a hundred years ago, the clientele is successful and civilized. But the beauty of a Paris cafe is that even shaggy-haired artistes can feel comfortable, as long as they can afford something from the menu.

The decore is muted gilt with pairs of cherubs at the corners so it looks like a Baroque church. And Cafe de la Paix is, in a way, an elegant temple to the gentele ways of time standing, or sitting, still. Near the staircase that leads to the W.C., there was once a small desk where a rubber stamp of the Cafe’s logo could be used to decorate postcards or a travel notebook. Tea and a waistline challenging pastry probably cost more than a sandwich and a beer. Service is included.

Footsteps of the Artists :: Impressionists in Paris

Sunday, May 27, 2012

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Passageway to hidden artists’ studios in Paris.
© L Peat O’Neil

 

Footsteps of the Impressionists in Paris


Montmartre

Vincent Van Gogh lived in Paris at 56 rue Lepic, from 1886 to 1888 with his brother Theo.  He painted rooftop scenes from that room and also painted at a friend’s studio, 10 rue Constance.

Sink into the slightly seedy atmosphere of a bohemian artist’s bistro at Au Virage Lepic,  61 rue Lepic. This bar/restaurant is run with an off-hand nonchalance that suggests the boozy haunts of more than a long century ago that attracted Toulouse-Lautrec and other artists to Montmartre. Arrive after late for dinner, or in the morning for a wake-up glass of red.  A group of Parisian mates and I dined there in the mid 1980s. I’m cheered to see the bistro continues to prosper.

Tattered posters cover walls dimmed yellow by clouds of cigarette smoke. Rules about smoking in Montmartre’s restaurants and bars may have changed during the 21st century.  The chef at Au Virage Lepic relies on grilled meat and fried potatoes, timeless staples that no doubt nourished Vincent and Theo Van Gogh and their pals. Late in the evening a chanteuse drops by to pay homage to Edith Piaf.

Luxembourg Gardens

Ponies awaiting riders outside Luxembourg Gardens.
© L Peat O’Neil

While he lived in the Luxembourg quarter, James McNeill Whistler strolled rue Notre Dame des Champs and at sundown, modern pedestrians evoke his vague street scenes with daubs of colorful clothing on a grey dusk background. When he returned to Paris from London in 1892, Whistler painted in a studio on the sixth floor at 86 rue Notre Dame des Champs. The building cornerstone is dated 1880, so it was relatively new when Whistler leased space.  The exterior is painted pale peach with white trim.

Whistler’s aura lives in the building where his British pals — dubbed the “Paris Gang” — had studios in the building at 53 Notre Dame des Champs and Jamie Whistler, the expat American,  was a frequent visitor. Today, the building is called Lucernaire and serves as an arts center, with cinema, theaters, galleries and cafes. Lucernaire was founded by Christian Le Guillochet and Luce Berthomme for actors, writers and cinematographers during the 1960s to reanimate the French cafe-theater movement.

Montparnasse

Art Studios known as La Ruche or Beehive.
© L Peat O’Neil

At 8 rue de la Grands-Chaumiere, off rue Notre Dame des Champs, a brass plate marks Atelier Modigliani, the artist’s last studio. “Modi”, as his colleagues called him, lived and worked there until friends transported him to the charity hospital at 47 rue Jacob where he died a couple of days later from tuberculosis January 24, 1920.

Gauguin also lived and worked in that building and next door, at number 6, a classic artist’s studio with wrought iron art nouveau windows in the style favored at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts.

Other remarkable people called this area their own. The literary critic and cultural historian Charles Sainte-Beuve lived at 19 rue Notre Dame des Champs while befriending Victor Hugo’s family who lived at number 11, decades before the Impressionists and their contemporaries arrived in the neighborhood.  Dozens of other artists worked in the area which makes an interesting walk from Metro station Notre-Dame-des-Champs.

Though only 137 meters long, rue Grands Chaumiere was an artists’ street throughout the 19th century and retains its reputation for its fine art schools, student residences, studios and painter’s supply stores. Restaurant Wadja, next to Atelier Modigliani exudes arty atmosphere.

Both Gauguin and Rousseau painted at studios in the Montparnasse neighborhood, but few vestiges of the artistic life endure. A meagerly stocked art supply store that I noted in 1988 at 26 rue Vercingetorix, not far from Paul Gauguin’s studio at number 6, is a decorator’s shop in the shadow of high rise towers like most of the neighborhood. Nearby at number 2 rue Penrel, Henri Rousseau lived for years, but street widening swept away his cottage and the lane is now part of a children’s playground.

Notre Dame du Travail

In the shadows of these pale post-modern office buildings is a unique church, Notre Dame du Travail de Plaisance at 59 rue Vercingetorix. Exposed iron girders like those used by Gustave Eiffel for his tower, replace the masonry buttresses one expects in a gothic style church. Instead of the usual painted images of saints on the chapel walls, the inspirational figures are white washed and decorated with art nouveau borders, like the edges of a page.

Latin Quarter

Artists have long been associated with the left bank and Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne and l’École des Beaux-Arts. Picasso lived and worked at 7 rue Grands-Augustins from 1936 until 1955. He painted his mural “Guernica” there. A plaque on the wall proclaims his tenancy. The house is within a minutes’ walk of rue Christine where Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas lived at number 5 where ivy covers the square pillar at the base of the stairs, obscuring the house number. When my father studied and worked in Paris after the Liberation of France in 1945, he and other Army chaps paid homage at the Stein-Toklas house.

Picasso’s Barcelona heritage is reflected in the Catalan bookstore that anchored rue des Grands Augustins where it intersects rue St. Andre des Arts for decades. As the neighborhood has experienced an influx of upmarket tenants, the bookstore faced closure with a brave face. Picasso is said to have enjoyed the fare at the restaurant Jacques Cogna, 14 Grandes Augustins, which is still in business in the 21st century.  Browse the used bookstores along rue St. Andre des Arts.

Todays posers and painters may drink at Bar Mazet, 61 Rue St. Andre des Arts, which was a rough and tumble cafe and beer-hall in the early 1990s and is now an Irish sports pub.  Or, head around the corner to  23 rue de l’Ancienne Comedie which was once the Relais Odeon, but in its 21st century incarnation is a fancy bakery.

In the heart of the busy, golden Blvd. Saint Germain, Café de Flore was Picasso’s hangout, along with distinguished writers and intellectuals of the late 1920s and 30s. Sartre and de Beauvoir wrote and played footsie there. One can assume that Picasso doodled on menus or matchbooks and Hemingway plotted conquests.  The waiters are consummate professionals; show your sophistication with humility for the grand tradition.

Also on the left bank, the rue de l’École de Medecine still exists, but a textbook store and part of the medical school claim the space that was once Brasserie Andler at 24-30 rue de l’École de Medecine, where during the last two decades of the 19th century, Courbet, Baudelaire, Corot and the older impressionist painters and symbolist writers congregated and traded toasts. Painter Rosa Bonheur lived at number 24 from 1864 to 1866.

Right Bank

Though not part of the Impressionist Movement, Eugene Delicroix developed a painting style that evoked light and movement through innovative brushwork and a complex color palette. The Delicroix Museum at 6 rue de Furstenberg facing a calm residential courtyard, is a gem of a small museum preserved by the Musees Nationaux. The painter’s house and studio are open for view and an array of his works are displayed.

In the posh area near the Champs Elysee, the American painter Mary Cassatt lived on the fifth floor at 10 rue de Marignan, a quiet side street. The fifth floor is at the top level of the building. Twentieth century tenants include a life insurance company and a gynecologist’s office.

In the fashionable 16th arrondissement, painter Berthe Morisot and her husband Eugene Manet, brother of painter Edouard Manet, built the house at 40 rue Paul Valery, known as rue de Villejust before 1945. In her diary, their daughter Julie Manet records the frequent visits of other impressionist artists — Degas, Claude Monet, Renoir and others.

Le Bal Mabile painted by Jean Beraud

The public dance halls and outdoor dancing parks such as Bal Mabille provided artists their choice of comely models.  They picked up dancers to be pose for them, and some became their companions. For 2 francs entrance fee, people could dance the waltz, quadrilles, mazurkas and polkas.  Toulouse-Lautrec was fond of painting the dance hall girls and singers at Thermes Saint Honore, which, alas, was destroyed.

In the Odeon neighborhood, Cafe Voltaire is history. In Montmartre, the country lanes Renoir, Gauguin and Van Gogh strolled are trimmed and paved. Montmarte Cemetery is a peaceful reminder of the past.  But elsewhere artist’s garrets rent for a fortune and gallery owners want to see a deep resume before considering paintings. Paris has changed in at least one aspect as hometown for the world’s artists; it costs more.

Montparnasse Cemetery with windmill built by Les Frères de la Charité (Brothers of Charity). © L Peat O’Neil

Walking where the famous artists did, seeing their rooms and studios (or whatever has replaced those structures) or visiting their graves, nurtures deeper understanding of their lives and work. Following their footsteps and imagining their daily lives, where they created, drank and talked transposes time and stretches one’s own vision.

Address Book

Artist’s Cafes — Almost any cafe or bar near an art school has “artists-in-residence”. Be aware that not all restaurants, bars or cafes are open on Sunday and in Paris many establishments lock their doors during August.  The places listed below may well offer menus far more expensive than students or emerging artists could afford.

Café de Flore, 172 Blvd. St. Germain. Metro: St. Germain des Près.

La Palette, 43 rue de Seine. Metro: Mabillon.

Le Petit Zinc, 11 rue Saint-Benoit.  Metro: St. Germain des Près

Restaurant Wadja, 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumiere. Metro: Vavin.