Posts tagged Europe

By Jacqueline Swartz

Can-can at the Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec’s absinthe drinkers and Renoir’s plump-armed women – Montmartre is synonymous with La Vie Boheme, a fin-de-siecle time when the arts burst open on the streets of Paris. Now there is a revitalized museum to showcase this Belle Epoque brilliance.

The Musee de Montmartre, housed in what was a  l7th century monastery, was opened in l960 to display the art and preserve the traditions of the glory days of Montmartre. But it remained in the shadows and never made it as one of Paris’ major museums. This year it has gotten more than a facelift – it now has a future as a collection of historic buildings and gardens that will express the flavor of Montmartre through permanent and temporary exhibits, and liberate many pieces of art from storage.

Opened in September of this year, the temporary exhibit is themed around the Chat Noir Cabaret. From l891 it was a place of innovation and improvisation. Evenings were filled with stories and songs. Eric Satie was the house pianist, Debussy composed there. Someone would recite poetry or sing songs. There were various groups – one called itself the Incoherents,

The current exhibit includes over 200 paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, posters and shadow-theatre cutouts, many never before displayed in France. Photographs make this magic time real. Through visual images and music, the exhibit captures the fin-se-siecle time that made Paris’ reputation as the center of the arts and bohemian life.

Before you enter the museum you come across gardens designed to reproduce those found in the paintings of Auguste Renoir. If you look up, you can see the studio of model-turned-artist Suzanne Valledon, who lived there with her artist son, Maurice Utrillo.

After entering the museum through the gardens, you come across a room with prints and drawings that evoke the Chat Noir cabaret. The second room contains photographs of the cabaret. There are illustrations for the Arts Incoherents and notebooks.

Other rooms show now-famous works like Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Ball at the Moulin Rouge and dreamy symbolist paintings. Not every artist’s name is known, but that’s part of the pleasure of discovery.

There’s a room dedicated to the circus, with prints drawings and posters showing the importance of the circus as a theme for artists of the time. Another room is devoted to the Café-concerts, with prints, posters, paintings and drawing showing popular entertainers such as Loie Fuller and La Belle Otero, one of the grandest courtesans of the time.

Montmartre was the backdrop, of course. It was a village until l860, with its own vineyards (several still exist); its summit is the highest point in what is now Paris. But all was not pastoral calm. In the Spring of 1871, the Paris Commune ruled. It called for separation of church and state, employee rights and equality for women. It was brutally put down, and thousands died. The famous Sacre Coeur Church, at the pinnacle of the mountain, was built, it is said, as a gesture of reconciliation. Began in 1875, it was not finished until l914.

A century later, in 2014, the project will be completed, with a building for permanent exhibits, one for temporary exhibits and a cafe. The heritage of this former village will be preserved, and along with Montmartre’s connections to the artists inspired by it.

The museum, at 10 rue Cortot, is open every day from 10am to 6pm.  It is accessible through the Metro stop, Lamarck-Caulaincourt, Line 12. Or you can take Autobus 80 and then the funicular. The phone is 01 49 25 89 39, email infos@museedemontmartre.fr.