Franquette Friday

Used in a Woody Allen film to create romantic allure, this nostalgic café-restaurant helms the historic crest of Montmartre, once hosting personnages like Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne and Zola.

Toulouse Tuesday

A mural of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec dominates a corner atop the butte.

 

Toulouse Tuesday

 

Portraits of artist Toulouse-Lautrec decorate the walls of a Montmartre back street.

 

Museum Monday

 

 

Further to yesterday's post -

 

The Montmartre Museum merits a visit for its location, architecture and Renoir Gardens alone.

 

Above: restored atelier of Suzanne Valadon, painters' model / artist who lived there with Impressionist André Utter and her son, Maurice Utrillo, starting in 1912, part of the permanent exhibition

 

 Below: Valadon's studio seen from the Renoir Gardens

 

 

Musée de Montmartre

12 rue Cortot 75018

 

Current:

Théophile Steinlen (1859 - 1923)

The Centenary Exhibition

 

Ends February 11, 2024

 

Chez Vincent

Passersby at #54 rue Lepic where Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh lived for two years with his brother Théo, an art dealer, usually have to be satisfied with the small plaque on the wall outside.

Above: a peek inside

 

Making an impression

 

A sign inside a Montmartre real estate agency reads, "The street artists are the new Impressionists."

***

In the late 1800s, the official Paris Salon dominated the French art world, enforcing rigid academic standards for what qualified as acceptable "art." Works that didn't conform were often rejected, but in 1863, Emperor Napoleon III established the Salon des Refusés - an exhibition for these “rejects" - following widespread complaints about the Salon's overly strict jury. This alternative showcase highlighted innovative painters, including early figures like Édouard Manet, and helped legitimize avant-garde styles. It paved the way for independent exhibitions, weakening the Salon's monopoly. By 1874, a group of rebellious artists - including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others - organized their own show outside the traditional system. Art critic Louis Leroy reviewed it mockingly in the newspaper Le Charivari, deriding Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise, as a mere “impression" - unfinished and sketchy, like wallpaper in its early stages. Intended as an insult, the term "Impressionists" stuck. The artists embraced it proudly, and their independent exhibitions continued, ultimately revolutionizing modern art as the once-dominant Paris Salon faded into obsolescence, much like the horse and buggy, in an era of change. - BPJ

Street in time

 

The Basilica of Sacré-Coeur emerges like a masterpiece from a Maurice Utrillo canvas.

 

***

 

Autumn in Montmartre

Art all around you

Chagall, Monet, Renoir, Yves Klein (that Klein), more.

All in one place.

Larger than life.

 New exhibition

L'Atelier des Lumières

Palatial

Baby sister of the Grand Palais just across the street, the Petit Palais is one of the grandest museums in Paris.

Le Petit Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill 75008

Orsay atrium

The ceiling of this former train station illuminates the many sculptures on display below.