Eleven
years since I made a post about the Montparnasse Cemetery (see here), so maybe time
for a little more…?
I somehow
feel that the more or less abandoned graves often are the nicest ones to look
at. The red roses on the top picture were on such a tomb. Here are
some more examples:
There is a special event around a tomb which was abandoned for many years, but not anymore. It seems that the Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer, Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) made some 40 versions of a sculpture named “The Kiss” and
one of the earliest ones – the only one where you can see the kissing couple in
full – was in 1911 placed on the tomb of a young Russian lady, Tatiana
Rachewskaïa, who committed suicide for (lost?) love at the age of 23, in 1910.
The only known portrait of her is to be found on her tomb. Her Russian family obviously
more or less forgot her until they realised that similar sculptures by Brancusi
today are sold for tens of millions of dollars or euros. For a couple of
years there has been a lawsuit between the City of Paris and the family regarding
the ownership of the sculpture, which now is hidden in a wooden box … and the
tomb is surveyed by a number of cameras.
I'm not going to make a more or less full report on the about 35.000 tombs at this cemetery and I already talked about some of them in my previous post (eleven years old post), but just remind you about how this cemetery is to be found in the shadow of the Montparnasse Tower (see previous post).
Here are just some random tombs and some small extra decorations to be found on top of some of them...
... and some additional photos of a snail on a flower and one of the spectacular adornment, "The Bird" by Niki de Saint Phalle, on which I already wrote in my previous Montparnasse post.
There are hundreds of celebrities buried here and in my previous post I already talked about some of them. I could not avoid showing some of them again and also some "new" - the most recent personality is obviously Agnès Varda.
Posts
6 comments:
11 ans depuis ton dernier message ? Les bras m'en tombent ! Le dit message d'ailleurs est une sorte de cimetière des blogueurs disparus.
Du nouveau au cimetière du Montparnasse, et non des moindres, les nouveaux résidents et la cage dans laquelle est à présent enfermé le baiser de Brancusi (il ne l'était pas encore il y a... je ne sais pas au fond quand j'y suis passé moi même pour la dernière fois)
Bises, Peter !
Esta contienda por el Brancusi me deja pasmada ¡Qué indecencia!
Hermosas flores, Peter.
Mil gracias:
Maria Russell
Je m'y suis déjà promenée avec Lucie et en février Philippe t moi l'avons traversé. Il y a du beau monde et de belles tombes dans ce cimetière.
The French cemeteries are so much more interesting than the American ones. This is striking -- an art gallery in itself.
Peter, thanks for making Montparnasse Cemetery such an interesting place.
I want to be buried in Montparnasse one day, and I would like a Brancusi sculpture. But my children (who live in Australia) say no :)
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