Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine River, centered on the intersection of the Boulevard de Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail.
The name Montparnasse stems from the nickname "Mount Parnassus", given to the neighborhood by students who came there to recite poetry. In the 18th century, the Boulevard Montparnasse was constructed and during the French Revolution many dance halls and cabarets opened their doors.
The neighborhood became famous at the beginning of the 20th century when it was the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris with its legendary cafés: the Dôme, the Rotonde, the Coupole, and others.
Turn-of-the-century Montparnasse defined the term "starving artist" as virtually penniless painters, sculptors, writers, and poets came from around the world to thrive in the creative atomosphere 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. Just a few of the great minds that gathered in Montparnasse were:
Pablo Picasso, Paul Fort, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Leger, Marc Chagall, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Chaim Soutine, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Max Jacob, Tsuguharu Foujita, Ernest Hemingway, Léon-Paul Fargue, Alberto Giacometti, Andre Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau, Henry Miller, Joan Miro and in his declining years, Edgar Degas.
While the area attracted people from all over the world who came to experience the creativity and/or the bohemian lifestyle, it also became home for political exiles such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
The quarter also contains the Pasteur Institute, the ancient Catacombs and the Cimetiere de Montparnasse where many of these great artists are buried.