Bridge over...

There was obviously a traffic problem in Paris to solve by the end of the 19th century. They had to decide to build a bridge, over the Montmartre cemetery. As can be seen from my photo, the bridge was constructed in 1888.

It’s interesting to see how they have managed to adjust the bridge in order to avoid destroying any of the existing tombs.

I have put the photos from this patchwork on my other blog, "Peter - photos".

Degas

I have still a few tombs at the Montmartre cemetery to show you and to comment on.
Here is the one (a family grave) of Edgar Degas, whose family name actually was De Gas. He was born in 1834 in Paris, where he also died in 1917*, at the age of 81.

Degas belonged to a wealthy and aristocratic family and had hardly any money problems. His father was a banker and an art lover and actually encouraged his son towards an artistic career. His mother was Creole, from New Orleans.

After some short law studies Degas travelled around Europe and studied painting. He spent several years in Italy. He was in the beginning concentrating on portraits (here a later self-portrait), and then made a lot of horse-racing paintings. He became friend with Manet and later (around 1865) also with Monet, Renoir and the other future impressionist painters, to which family he definitely belongs, although he was never a landscape painter.

These painters belonged to the so called “Groupe des Batignolles” of which I talked earlier (April 3). Degas lived at that time just across the street to the Café Guerbois (of which I also have talked), where they all regularly met.

He then started to concentrate more on themes like theatre, dance and music. As he did not have to worry about selling his paintings for living, he could more or less paint what he liked. He was a painter of movements and his ballet paintings are examples on this.

He started to not see so well as from the 70’s and concentrated more on pastels and sculptures – oil painting was too meticulous for him.

He became completely blind in 1911 and did not produce anything the last six years of his life. He never married.

*/ ... or in Saint-Valéry sur Somme. See comments (added late 15/5).

Fernando Sor

Have you ever tried to play classical guitar? I did when I was young. Not very succesfully and here you can see my guitar with one broke and one missing string. It has been a dust collector for years.

Anyhow, it was thanks to this guitar learning that I reacted when, again in the Montmartre cemetary, I suddenly saw the tomb of Fernando Sor (http://www.answers.com/topic/fernando-sor). More than anyone else he has contributed to making the guitar also a classical instrument. You can see from the flowers that he is not forgotten.

Fernando was born in Barcelona in 1778, played several instruments, was a good singer... He had a very early success as an opera composer (at 18), moved around in Spain and came under the protection of the famous Duchess of Alba (who also protected - an perhaps more) Goya. Fernando, as many other Spanish artists, after some hesitation, was in favour of the French invadors (again Napoleon) and when the French had to leave Spain in 1813, he followed.

He had a succesful career as composer, performer of different instruments and singer and made the tour of Europe. He got in love with a young French ballerina and spent some years in Moscow when she performed there. He then settled down more permanantly in Paris and concentrated on the guitar, composed a lot, teached the guitar and published his famous Guitar Method in 1830. He died in 1839.

Classical guitar music was not a big issue for long, but came again in fashion in the middle of last century. I had the previlege to twice assist to concerts of Andrès Segovia, who played a lot of Fernando's music.

La Goulue

(I will not continue my series of tombs at the Montmartre cemetery for ever, but there are still a few to come...)

Louise Weber was born in 1866 and died in 1929. As a young girl she went dancing with friends. Her way of dancing was sometimes a bit provocative and you could ocasionally see her legs and perhaps even more, when she moved around. She soon got the nickname "la Goulue" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Goulue), obviously because she drank from all glasses which were staying around.

She got acquainted with some painters, like Renoir and did some posing.

Louise and her sister got an engagement at the newly opened "Moulin Rouge" in 1889 (she was then 23). She bacame quickly a star and can be considered as the inventor of the "cancan". Her last years were less glorious. She was actually buried in a Paris suburb cemetary, but Jacques Chirac decided in 1992 to transfer her ashes to the Montmartre cemetary. Some 2000 people plus press, radio and television assisted.

Part of her fame comes of course from the Toulouse-Lautrec paintings and posters. You can here see some of them, but also some photos of what she really looked like. I guess she became popular more for her personality than for her beauty - although the criteria for beauty change with the time.

Heinrich Heine

As I already "warned" you, there are some more tombs of famous people at the Montmartre graveyard. Here is one more: Heinrich Heine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine).

Heinrich, who is one of the greatest German poets, was born in Düssledorf (where I have spent a large part of my last working time the last five years) in 1797, moved to Paris in 1831, where he died in 1856.



On his tomb, you can read:

Wo wird einst der Wandermüden
letzte Ruhestand sein?
Unter Palmen in dem Süden?
Unter Linden and dem Rhein?
Werd ich wo in einer Wüste
eingeschärrt von Fremder Hand
oder ruh ich an der Küste
eines Meeres in dem Sand?
Immerhin! Mich wird umgeben
Gottes Himmel dort wie hier,
und als Totenlampen schweben
nachts die Sternen über mir

In nicer wording this means more or less that he did not care where he would be buried. He will anyhow be surrounded by the sky and the stars.

Among his most famous poems, you can mention "Lorelei" (Ich weiss nich, was soll es bedueten...) which strongly contributed to make the tale about this young maiden so popular. Like "Lorelei", many of his poems have been set to music, including by Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Strauss, Wagner...

Heinrich, jewish, had a rather chaotic life being a good consumer of wines, women... meeting Karl Marx and sharing his opinions. His works were often partly banned in Germany. His books were again burnt on the Opernplatz in Berlin in 1933. To commerate this event, one of his lines is now engraved on this site (Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen = Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too).

La Dame aux Camélias

I continue my visit of graves at the Montmartre graveyard. Here is the one of "la Dame aux Camélias" ("Camille"). You can see some camelia flowers incrusted on the top of the monument and some more or less natural camelia flowers, which people have placed there.



The lady has really exisited. Here real name was Marie Duplessis (actually the "du" was added by herself, to make her name sound more noble). She was a courtesan (mistress), who died of tubercolosis in 1847, at the age of 23. She had a number of wealthy and famous lovers, including Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas the younger, who immediately wrote about her and made her famous (under the name of Marguerite Gautier). La Traviata by Verdi is based on Alexandre Dumas' play.



Actually, Alexandre Dumas the younger (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/adumas2.htm) is also buried at the Montmartre graveyard. Alexandre was the illegimate son of Alexandre Dumas senior - author of The Three Musketers, The Count of Monte Cristo... , who in his turn was the illegimate son of a general from the French revolution, who was the son of a Haitian slave.


(There are a lot of graves of famous people at Montmartre, 10 minutes walk away... More to follow.) This was supposed to be my contribution for April 26, wen I will be rather busy. Obviously I put it in just before midnight instead of just after midnight.

Jacob Eberst

The Montmartre cemetery is quite close. Some time ago I published a photo of the grave of Emile Zola. Here is another one.

Jacob was born in Cologne in 1819, came to Paris in 1833 for music studies... and became the most French of German composers: Jacques Offenbach (http://perso.orange.fr/anao/composit/offenbach.html). Already his dad changed the family name to Offenbach, after the village where he was born.

Jacques, more or less the originator of the modern operetta, died in Paris in 1880, after having composed "Orpheus in the Underworld", "La vie parisienne", "La belle Hèlène", "La Périchole", "The Grand Duchesse of Gerolstein" and a lot more, including his last work, the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann"...

When you refer to Paris life in the 19th century, you automatically assiciate it with Offenbach music.