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Liudmila Kondakova - Montmartre Morning
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"Paris is the city were reality and fiction have always met as if in the suspended universe of fantasy."
Once a suburb of Paris and now part of the city itself, the hilltop neighborhood of Montmartre is sometimes called the "last village" in the city of Paris. The milieu of artists, cafe patrons, and dance halls, it still keeps a subtle and unique atmosphere in spite of the influx of visitors from all over the world. Before the days of the French Revolution, Montmartre was infamous for somewhat dangerous tavers, disorderliness, and loose living. To counteract that reputation, the great basilica of Notre-Dame du Sacre-Coeur (Our Land of the Sacred Heart) was built and inaugurated in 1891. The neighborhood still hosts a lively nightlife, with memories of the extravagant shows at the Moulin Rouge echoing in the narrow streets and alleys.
Liudmila Kondakova shows us this well-known spot in the gentle light of the early morning. The streets are quiet and empty (even the most dedicated cafe patrons go to bed at some point). The rising sun lights up the colorful facades of the buildings and shops, edging our the glow of the lamplights that give the City of Lights its name. Sacre-Coeur rises imposingly, as if to remind the citizens that they should keep a higher purpose in mind, and that Eiffel Tower beckons in the distrace.
Montmartre is also known, and has been for a few hundred years, as the hangout for starving artists, and many (once) penniless artists lived at Bohemian life there - Renoir, Monte, Lautrec, Van Gogh, and Picasso among them. Liudmila Kondakova joins their ranks as an artist who has immortalized the aura of this historical neighborhood in her belived city of Paris.
Montmartre is thought to be names the Mountain of Martyrs, in commemoration of Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris, or possibly in reference to unknown martyrs buried a the summit of the hill.
Geologically, it is rich in the minerals gypsum, from which plaster of Paris in made.
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