Paris - Place du Tertre - 18e

Plate XCII – Place du Tertre …

Could this be just another day at the office? The social importance to the daily community of the Place du Tertre cannot be misunderstood or underestimated. I have visited this venue a number of times since this first visit, and each time I am amazed at the earnestness of the numerous conversations always underway amongst the artist society (and their visitors – as many do not seem to be ‘at work’). Perhaps amongst them is tomorrow’s van Gogh or Picasso, for you can imagine how the conversations in their time took on a similar depth and heated significance. You’ll see a painter have his say, return to his delicate brush strokes while his protagonist responds and then he’ll reply gesturing as demonstratively as his thoughts demand, before returning to momentarily and calmly continue as before with a few more strokes of his art. It gets me smiling every time. Perhaps these latter day philosophers will not change the world, but then again maybe ……

Paris - Moulin de la Galette - 18e

Plate XC – Moulin de la Galette …

You may have gathered from earlier posts that I have a reasonable familiarity with French art, and especially the Impressionists. I had therefore at least heard of the Moulin de la Galette through Renoir’s popular painting of a crowd of diners and revellers at the site (Bal au Moulin de la Galette). Other familiar works set here are by Toulouse-Lautrec and van Gogh. What I did not know however was that the moulin is still here, and although no longer operating, its sails attract the passer by to come and take a closer look. The Moulin as pictured is actually two mills in one, with the lower storey known as ‘Blute-Fin’ originally built in 1622, and the upper wind sail mill belonging to the later 1717 addition named ‘Radet’. A classified Paris monument since 1939, the building has an interesting history.

Regularly maintained since the seventeenth century the mill was acquired by the Debray brothers in 1809 and used for flour grinding, some of that flour being used to produce the traditional rye bread biscuits known as galettes. Attacked by Russian Cossacks during the invasion of 1814, one of the brothers was captured, killed and then nailed to the wings of the mill’s sails. The dancing room and ‘ginguette’ were late nineteenth century additions. Now a private property the mill came close to demolition in 1915, but was saved by a group of preservationists known as the Friends of Old Montmartre. Moved to its present site in 1924 the most recent restoration was in 1978. Compared to the better known Moulin Rouge, I found this mill far less a commercial attraction and more…. well, more of a mill.

Paris - Boulevard Clichy - 18e

Plate LXXXVI - Boulevard de Clichy …

If you’re not here on ‘business’, the safest way for the curious, pedestrian tourist to walk along Boulevard de Clichy is to take the middle island in preference to the side pavements. Of course if you are there on business, and knowing the emporia of the area include such names as Love Theatre, Pigalle’s Peep Show or simply Sex Shop, you probably won’t want to do this. This is the red-light district of Paris so you then also won’t mind the continuous approaches of the pimps or mecs who ply their trade along the Boulevard - seemingly for twenty four hours a day. It started off as entertaining, but the persistence of some can start to seem annoying and then even threatening; but it does seem an unwritten code that they, with their promises of showing you a very good time, do not bother strollers taking that sacred middle ground. Of course this choice of path precludes any ‘window shopping’, and the often fading pictures of some of the performances on offer promise delivery of exactly what you’d go shopping for along certain stretches of the Boulevard. Nudge, nudge – wink, wink!

Such was my introduction to what I venture is the essential Paris - Pigalle and Montmartre. If anyone with only an hour in the city asked me where they simply had to go, this would be it. Forget the Louvre (it needs days) or the Eiffel Tower (you’ll see it from here anyway) and you’ll almost certainly pass the Arc de Triomphe en route. Montmartre is the Paris of Piaf, Degas, Lautrec, Renoir, Utrillo, Daumier, van Gogh, and Picasso, the Moulin Rouge, Au Lapin Agile and many cabarets, the Sacré Coeur and the Place du Tertre.

And of sex.

Paris - Hôtel Biron - 7me

Plate LVII - The Hotel Biron (Rodin Museum) …

There is an elite group of art figures where a single name is identity enough. Rodin is one.

The Hôtel Biron, dating from around 1730 was built by Jacques Gabriel and Jean Aubert as a private residence, becoming in turn - the home of Marshal de Biron in 1753, a convent for the Nuns of the Society of Sacre-Coeur in 1820, a secondary school in the early 1900’s and then, scheduled for demolition, several rooms were placed at the disposal of the sculptor Rodin until his death in 1917.

His bequest of works, some 500 - in bronze and marble and left to the state, may be seen at the Rodin Museum today housed within and around the still extensive gardens of the Hôtel Biron. The once austere interiors, stripped of decorative ornamentation during the convent occupation have regained some of their original features, now restored to their original positions. A friend and collector of works by van Gogh, Renoir, and Monet these works once owned by Rodin are here too, as are some by his student and lover Camille Claudel.

But it is the work of (François Auguste René) Rodin you will come to see.