Montparnasse Cemetery

Sat. April 14

On my way to Montparnasse Cemetery, as I stepped off the bus, I realized I was in the heart of Montparnasse.  There, almost on one corner were all the famous restaurants where the artists and authors (Hemingway and that lot),  from around the turn of the century and beyond used to hang out....when they weren't boozing it up in Montmartre.  Le Select, Le Dome, La Rotonde and La Coupole....I can remember reading about all of them in various biographies and memories.  I'm sure these places could not have been quite so grand back then.....taking a look at the menus posted outside....no struggling writer could afford to eat there now.

Montparnasse Cemetery is the second largest cemetery in Paris.  I'm sure you must think I'm obsessed....all these cemetery pictures....but I think it's interesting and there's always lots of good sculptures.  I like to seek out the graves of the artists, in whose lives I have had an interest.  To see where they lived.......to see where they are buried.....and to see the influence of their art now, in the 21st century.

Some of the pictures below are of particular graves that I wanted to see and others are interesting to me for their beauty.

     Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.  I thought it very interesting when I read that in a love affair so full of passion and lust and emotion....that their entire lives, they spoke to one another with the formal  "vous" not the familiar "tu".     I love the dappled light in this photo.

The above picture is of the inscription (nothing else) and this picture, below, is what the faithful have left on the grave stone.  The metro tickets are everywhere on the graves of famous people.  When I first saw it on Truffaut's grave, I understood.  He made a movie called "The Last Metro."  During the war, with the curfew and the blackouts, no one wanted to miss the last Metro home before the curfew.  But the metro tickets seemed to be on many graves.  I'm sure there are many explanations, and in fact, true to Sartre, everyone has their own reasons for leaving them.....  Actually I did read that Satre had, at one time, supported the Maoists movement in Paris when they protested a big hike in the price of Metro tickets.  There was a popular protest, acted out by buying metro tickets and giving them to the less fortunate who could not afford to buy them themselves.

I thought this was interesting.  It's almost like she's looking up at the barred windows above.

OK, in my last post, about the Luxembourg gardens, I had a picture of a sculpture by Zadkine, the Russian sculptor.  He is quite well-know, his two museums dedicated to his work.  This is his very modest grave, with the stones, left as a symbol of prayer.

OK....here's my man Serge Gainsbourg.  You remember him from the pictures I had of his house with all the graffiti.  His grave is quite a collection of offerings.  I understand they have to clean it off quite frequently.  There are a lot of cigarette butts.  He smoked constantly and, in fact, died of heart disease as a result, at least partially (along with alcohol and drugs) of smoking.  He had several heart attacks.  And, of course, the ubiquitous metro tickets (in this case because of one of his songs about a man punching metro tickets all day) and many other things in reference to his life and his music.  The cabbages are for one of his albums intitled The Man With the Cabbage Head, which was also one of his nick-names.

Now here is what I consider a sad sight.  This is the grave of Soutine.  The artist currently being exhibited with Modigliani and Utrillo and Valado at the Pinacotheque Museum.  His paintings go at auction for millions.  People are still making millions by dealing and exhibiting his art.  So does it matter, really.....the place where we are laid to rest?  After 50 years or less....no one is around to take care of our resting place.  Is what's important is that he is remembered by the world for his art....which is, I'm sure, what he wanted....?  However decaying his grave....I, for one, am glad it was there, for me to complete the circle of  studying his life, his death and his place in the art world of today.

This is the tomb of Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico for many many years.  The longest standing Mexican president.  When his government collapsed in 1911, he was exiled to Paris, where he died in 1915.