Montmartre, 1950

Pour moi, c'est la plus belle photo du monde. Je ne sais pas qui est l'auteur.

I tried several close ups, here's what I got:

René-Jacques, Montmartre, 1950

Les Escaliers de Montmartre. Here is the image shot by René-Jacques, in 1950. Great photographers were attracted by them, Brassaï and Teo Tarras among others.
An inclined railway, le Funiculaire de Montmartre, accompanies the stairs.
Such a funicular is very interesting stuff. I traveled in inclined railways in Budapest and Dresden.
To walk the Escaliers, to take the Funiculaire? If you have time to spend, the choice is the Funiculaire, there is always a waiting line. If you are busy, the choice remains the Funiculaire - the Escaliers are for dreamers.

I remember the photo of one of my schoolmates, on the Escaliers de Montmartre. More than thirty years had passed, still she was wearing on her face the same light as in high school.

Camille Pissarro, Le Boulevard Montmartre, Effet de Nuit

Camille Pissarro - Le Boulevard Montmartre, Effet de Nuit, 1897
National Gallery, London

At five o'clock in the morning Guillaume locked the door of the bar behind us. The streets were empty and grey... A garçon de café spilled water on the sidewalk before his establishment and swept it into the gutter. At the end of the long, curving street which faced us were the trees of the boulevard and straw chairs piled high before cafés.
(James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room)

I will be very busy for the next ten days, so I'll leave you with this image of the Boulevard Montmartre. I have several other wonderful images - I saw an exhibition of Paul Klee that I would like to talk about, and many other things. I'll do this when I come back. Meanwhile I will miss you all.

Brassai - Les Escaliers de Montmartre

Do you remember, Les Escaliers de Montmartre, by Teo Tarras? Here is how Brassaï saw them.

When you meet the man you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary eyes (Henry Miller on Brassaï)

I'm looking on the web (vainly, I'm afraid) for a poster that I have in my apartment - the same Escaliers de Montmartre, two lovers in a hug, a kid looking at them with teasing eyes, an adult is stepping up, looking in an indefinite direction - the photo is dated 1950 - only there is no indication about the author.

I bought it in New Hope, a small town on the borders of Delaware, not very far from Philadelphia. It used to be a town for artists, and it kept something of their spirit - you feel it as you are wandering through the small galleries and bistros. It was a time when I was visiting New Hope quite often. Here is a pub in New Hope, from old times. It seems people were having fun in the old times...






(Philadelphia)

Teo Tarras - Les Escaliers de Montmartre

Was it fun? ... did the blue creep out from the Colonades of the rue de Rivoli through the grill of the Tuilleries... was the Louvre gray and metallic in the sun and did the trees hang brooding over the cafes and were the lights at night and the click of saucers and the auto horns that play de Bussey?

Zelda Fitzgerald in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Summer 1930




What would have been the answer of Scott Fitzgerald? Well, perhaps, it was so fun, only now I'm lonely - I was today aux Escaliers de Montmartre, and I was missing you, and les Escaliers were looking a bit sad, without you ...

Actually he set his short story Babylon Revisited along the same boulevards, and at one point there is a paraphrase to Zelda's letter, he wanted to see the blue hour spread over the magnificent facade, and imagine... the cab horns, playing endlessly the first few bars of La Plus que Lente.




(The Fitzgeralds)