Belle V Reports:

Fin-de siècle Montparnasse

How lucky I am to have the possibility of discovering treasure every day at Brentano's-Paris (www.brentanos.fr).

It was my good fortune to learn about two wonderful and unique books that have not been widely distributed or reported and deserve more attention. . .Paris is loved and lauded for inspiring painters, writers and composers and has for generations attracted artists and aesthetes from many nations - often penniless when they arrived. At the end of the nineteenth century Montparnasse became the city's dynamic artistic and intellectual center, home to an international creative community.

John Crombie, author, publisher and artist-printer, brings the story of Montparnasse to life in two beautifully produced books, RUE DE LA GRANDE CHAUMIERE: THE CRADLE OF MONTPARNASSE and CHEZ CHARLOTTE AND FIN DE SIECLE MONTPARNASSE. He traces the historical path from the quarter's origin on a mound of quarry-rubble, to the open-air cafés and dance-halls and the Bal de la Grande Chaumière, to the haven of back-garden studios and melting-pot of cultures unified by art that it became. The sense of those times is enhanced by the interesting black and white photos of places and people (like Gauguin, half-dressed, barefoot and trouserless, playing the harmonium chez-Mucha), drawings and artworks that document the neighborhood of the Carrefour Vavin -“once dubbed the naval of the universe”. CHEZ CHARLOTTE, particularly, is the story of that uniquely cosmopolitan restaurant that for over a decade provided a favored haunt and last refuge for Gauguin, Strindberg, Mucha and many another pioneering spirit adrift in fin-de siècle Paris. Charlotte Caron, the propriétaire, was happy to be known as “La Mère des Artistes”. Her restaurant, along with a modest academy of art, on la Rue de la Grande Chaumiére “turned the street into the epicentre of a revolution in the making.”

Find your way there with these lovely, intelligent and entertaining books. (18 euros each plus shipping: brentanos@wanadoo.fr)

Bonne lecture . . et bon voyage! -

Belle V.