Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centered on the intersection of the Boulevard de Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail. It is part of the 14eme arrondissement, having been absorbed into Paris along with other districts and villages in 1860.
The area also gives its name to:
- Gare Montparnasse (trains to Brittany, TGV to Tours, Bordeaux.)
- Cimetiere de Montparnasse
- Tour Montparnasse
The name Montparnasse stems from the nickname "Mount Parnassus" (In Greek mythology, home to the nine Greek goddesses (the Muses) of the arts and sciences) given to the neighborhood in the 17th century by students who came there to recite poetry.
The hill was levelled to construct the Boulevard Montparnasse in the 18th century, and during the French Revolution many dance halls and cabarets opened their doors.
Like its counterpart, Montmartre, the neighborhood of Montparnasse became famous at the beginning of the 20th century, referred to as the Années Folles (the Crazy Years), when it was the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris with its legendary cafés. The cafés and bars of Montparnasse were a vital meeting place where new ideas were hatched and mulled over. The cafés at the centre of Montparnasse's night-life were the Dôme, La Rotonde, Le Select, and La Coupole which were all on the Boulevard de Montparnasse. In years from 1910 to 1940, the gist of Paris' artistic circles gradually moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse. The bohemian British artist Nina Hamnett recounted how she once borrowed a jersey and corduroy trousers from Modigliani, then went to the Rotonde and danced in the street all night. World War II forced the dispersal of the artistic society and after the war Montparnasse never regained its splendour.
Turn-of-the-century Montparnasse defined the term "starving artist" as virtually penniless painters, sculptors, writers, poets and composers came from around the world to thrive in the creative atmosphere and for the cheap rent. Living without running water, in damp, unheated "studios," many sold their works for a few francs just to buy food. Today, their works regularly sell in the millions of dollars.
There are many areas where the great artists congregated, one of them being near Le Dôme at no. 10 rue Delambre called the Dingo Bar. It was the celebrated hang-out of expatriates and the place where Ernest Hemingway, still an unpublished writer, first met the already established F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. When Man Ray's friend and Dadaist, Marcel Duchamp, left for New York, Man Ray set up his first studio at l'Hôtel des Ecoles at no. 15 rue Delambre. This is where his career as a photographer began, and where James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and the others filed in and posed for eternity in black and white.
Just a few of the other great minds who gathered in Montparnasse were:
Pablo Picasso, Paul Fort, Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Leger, Marc Chagall, Juan Gris, Moise Kisling, Chaim Soutine, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Diego Rivera, Max Jacob, Tsuguharu Foujita, Léon-Paul Fargue, Alberto Giacometti, Andre Breton, Pascin, Salvador Dali, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henry Miller, Joan Miro and in his declining years, Edgar Degas.
The rue de la Gaité in Montparnasse was the site of many of the great music-hall theatres, in particular the famous Bobino. On their stages, the greats of the day, using then-popular single name pseudonyms or one birth name only, such as Damia, Kiki, Mayol and Georgius, sang and performed to packed houses. And here too, Les Six was formed, creating music based on the ideas of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau.
While the area attracted people from all over the world who came to live and work in the creative and/or bohemian environment, it also became home for political exiles such as Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Porfirio Diaz, and Simon Petlyura.
The quarter also contains the Institut Louis Pasteur, the ancient Catacombs of Paris and the Cimetiere de Montparnasse where many of these great artists are buried.