General information
Montmartre is a hill (the butte Montmartre) which is 130 meters high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district. The other, older, church on the hill is Saint Pierre de Montmartre, which claims to be the location at which the Jesuit order of priests was founded.
Many artists had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre such as Salvador Dalí, Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh. Montmartre is also the setting for several hit films. This site is served by metro line 2 stations of Anvers, Pigalle and Blanche and the line 12 stations of Pigalle, Abbesses, Lamarck - Caulaincourt and Jules Joffrin.
Artistic spirit of Montmartre
In the mid-1800s artists, such as Johan Jongkind and Camille Pissarro, came to inhabit Montmartre. By the end of the century, Montmartre and its counterpart on the Left Bank, Montparnasse, became the principal artistic centers of Paris. A restaurant opened near the old windmill near the top, the Moulin de la Galette.
Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and other impoverished artists lived and worked in a commune, a building called Le Bateau-Lavoir during the years 1904–1909.
Artist associations such as Les Nabis and the Incoherents were formed and individuals including Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Brissaud, Alfred Jarry, Gen Paul, Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Suzanne Valadon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Maurice Utrillo, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Théophile Steinlen, and African-American "expatriates" such as Langston Hughes worked in Montmartre and drew some of their inspiration from the area.
Composers, including Satie (who was a pianist at Le Chat Noir), also lived in the area.
The last of the bohemian Montmartre artists was Gen Paul (1895–1975), born in Montmartre and a friend of Utrillo. Paul's calligraphic expressionist lithographs, sometimes memorializing picturesque Montmartre itself, owe a lot to Raoul Dufy.
What to Do & See
Just off the top of the butte, Espace Dalí showcases surrealist artist Salvador Dalí's work. Nearby, day and night, tourists visit such sights as the artists in Place du Tertre and the cabaret du Lapin Agile. Many renowned artists are buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre and the Cimetière Saint-Vincent.
Montmartre was the setting of the film La Môme, [English release title, La Vie En Rose] which elaborates the life of famous French singer Edith Piaf and her times in the slums of Paris, and of Amélie, the story of a young Parisian woman determined to help the lives of others and find her true love, is set in an exaggeratedly quaint version of contemporary Montmartre. 2001's Moulin Rouge! was also set here, the story of a young man who believes in truth, beauty and love, and who falls in love with a famous courtesan. 1954's Moulin Rouge, solely about the life and lost loves of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, also took place here.
Montmartre is an officially designated historic district with limited development allowed in order to maintain its historic character.
A funicular railway, the Funiculaire de Montmartre, operated by RATP, ascends the hill from the south while the Montmartre Bus circles the hill.
Downhill to the southwest is the red-light district of Pigalle. That area is, today, largely known for a wide variety of sex shops and prostitutes. It also contains a great number of stores specializing in instruments for rock music. There are also several concert halls, also used for rock music.
How to Get there?
A number of metro stations are stopping at Latin quarter.
Line 2 : Anvers ; Pigalle ; Blanche
Line 4 : Château Rouge
Line 12 : Pigalle ; Abbesses ; Lamarck-Caulaincourt ; Jules Joffrin
Line 13 : Place de Clichy
Lines 30 ; 54 ; 85 ; 80 ; 67 ; 74 ; 95