Page 17 - TravelSketch - PARIS

DISCOVER & EXPLORE

3. Paris Bohème:

Montmartre, Flea Market, Montparnasse

• During the “Belle Epoque” or Golden Age. Montmartre was a hub of many artists, finding low

rents and cheap bistrots, while anarchists found a hiding place in this bad neighborhood.

Salvador Dalí, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Piet Mondrian,
Pablo Picasso (who painted “Les Demoiselles d’Avigon” in 1907 at his studio at Le Bateau

Lavoir), Camille Pissarro, and Vincent van Gogh worked there or around.

• From the 1920 to the 50’s they reached fame and success and moved to the more “bourgeois”

neighborhood of Montparnasse (in reference to the Parnasse hill from the Greek mythology),

which became in the 1920’s the capital of arts and the of the birthplace of the first “Paris

School”. Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sartre… made Montparnasse the
legendary “Montparnasse by Night”. Henry Miller once described Montparnasse as « the Navel

of the World”. With the Prohibition in United States, many Americans moved to Paris, from

writers, musicians (Sydney Bechett), artists (Josephine baker), art collectors, …. They all have
imprinted this “crazy” period. Nowadays, Montparnasse is part of History… with the legendary

Le Select or La Coupole.

• Since 1870, Saint Ouen, this northern outskirt neighborhood of Paris has expended from a used

cloth market to a more sophisticated fleas and antique markets to includes 15 markets of which
Paul Bert/Serpette, Dauphine and Vernaisson are the most popular. Each market has its own

flavor and atmosphere offering a wide range of junk, antiques and sometime rarities worth

exploring.