THE VIRTUAL WINE MUSEUM - LE MUSÉE VIRTUEL DU VIN

From the 1910s, following the triumph of Cubism, Montparnasse (an area far from the right bank) became more popular among avant-garde artists than Montmartre. Bohemia moved out there.

Montparnasse’s chief difference from Montmartre lay in the number of arts practised there: poetry (Cendras, Cocteau, Max Jacob, etc.) and music (the “group of six” of Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud – plus Erik Satie and many more) joined sculpture, painting, theatre and the concert and cabaret venues so beloved of Montmartre. But Montparnasse was above all the neighbourhood of photography, with Berenice Abbott, Man Ray, Brassaï, Kertész, Capa – and Atget, who had started it all. This neighbourhood was well-known to Atget, living as he did at 17b Rue Campagne-Première, between Boulevard du Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail. He resided there from 1899 until his death in 1927.
 

Atget often snatched his images at dawn, both to take advantage of the transparent morning light and to avoid traffic and crowds. The terraces of La Rotonde and Le Dôme might be empty now, but they won’t be for long. 

La Rotonde and Le Dôme would become legendary. They are the beating hearts of the Vian crossroads, where Boulevard du Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail intersect. The myth of the “Montparnos” was created on the immense terrace of La Rotonde on the corner, nicknamed “Raspail-Plage” [“Raspail Beach”]. Pablo Picasso lived nearby and spent his afternoons there, as did the Welsh artist and writer Nina Hamnet. She had just arrived at Montparnasse and would discover the Paris of the années folles thanks to the people she met in this café. One day, she was sitting at a table there and saw a man smiling at her. “Modigliani,” the stranger introduced himself, “painter and Jew.” La Rotonde was also frequented by Juan Gris, Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Cocteau and other controversial artists, as well as political émigrés like Lenin and Trotsky. “That Rotonde!” wrote model Kiki, “going there was like going home, we felt like family.” The owner, Libion, wanted the artists to feel at home. He subscribed to newspapers from around the world, letting the artists stay for hours in the warm in winter for the price of a single coffee. “One day, they’ll make my café famous!” Although La Rotonde was a fundamental part of Montparnasse, it was – like all the odd numbers of the northern part of the boulevard – administratively attached to the 6th arrondissement.
 

Opposite, and situated at the angle of Boulevard du Montparnasse (on the even side, in the 14th arrondissement) and Rue Delambre. The Café du Dôme, commonly known as Le Dôme, was built in 1898 on the site of shacks and the edge of a slum, as existed here and there in the neighbourhood. From 1905, the café began to attract a clientele of Scandinavian, German and American artists; it soon made its name as an intellectual meeting-place. The regulars would discuss topics, namely painting, for hours. When the Great War broke out, the call to arms put an end to Montparnasse’s festive atmosphere. Between the wars, Le Dôme became an incontestable symbol of the Roaring Twenties. The “Dômiers” included Max Ernst, Foujita, Kandinsky, Lenin, Marie Laurencin, Henry Miller, Modigliani, Picasso, Man Ray, Soutine and many more.