From Paris with Love: Along Rue d’Assas in Montparnasse

Musee Zadkine

This museum really is in a “secret garden,” but it is easy to find if you know what you are looking for. Exit at metro Vavin in Montparnasse in the 6^th arrondissement. Take Rue Vavin to Rue d’Assas and turn right. It is a short walk to the museum at 100 bis Rue d’Assas. The only sign for the museum is mounted long-ways on the side of a building. I expected something a little more elaborate, so I missed it on my first pass down Rue d’Assas. Once you’ve found the passageway, head down the narrow lane between garden walls that leads to a small house. You know you are in the right place when you see a bronze sculpture, Girouette, at the end of the lane.

Musee Zadkine sign

Lane off Rue d’Assas

Girouette (Weathervane, 1965)

Jewish sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) spent his boyhood in Belarus, part of the Russian Empire at the time. He attended art school in London and settled in France in 1910, where he became part of the Cubist Movement (1914-1925.) During World War I, he served on the front lines as a stretcher-bearer in the French army. Zadkine lived and created in his atelier in Paris from 1928 until his death in 1967. Thanks to a bequest to the City of Paris by Zadkine’s wife, the painter Valentine Prax, all of Zadkine’s works have been preserved and are on display in his house, his atelier and in the small garden adjoining the house. Zadkine’s early work was inspired by Auguste Rodin as well as by the cubists, whose principles he translated into sculpture. As of about 1920, he rejected cubist use of forms and acquired a softer style. Many of Zadkine's works cover musical, mythological and religious subjects, and his style varies with his materials. I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the museum, but the sculptures in the garden were so stunning, it really didn’t matter.

Projet de Monument Guillaume Apollinaire

(Project for a Monument to Guillaume Apollinaire, 1948)

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1919) was a French poet and among the foremost poets of the early 20th century. He was a very influential part of the artistic community in Paris, and his friends included many of the cubist artists, including Zadkine. He died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Two Zadkine sculptures in the garden

La Foret Humaine (The Human Forest, 1957-58)

Statue pour une montagne ou Coeur Venteux

(A Statue for a Mountain or Windy Heart, 1958)

The best I can translate “windy heart“ is someone who is fickle in romance--he/she changes with the weather. In the upper cavity, of this sculpture, there should be a heart-like figure hanging down, which would explain the "heart" reference. It's not there, maybe for restoration purposes.

Projet pour le monument aux Freres Van Gogh

(Project for a Monument to the Van Gogh brothers, 1963)

Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh (1857-1891) was a Dutch art dealer and the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh. Theo supported his brother Vincent financially and emotionally throughout both of their lives. Theo died at the age of 33, six months after Vincent died at the age of 37.

La Melancolie (The Melancholy Woman, 1929-1937)

Orphee (Orpheus, 1956)

In mythology, Orpheus was a legendary musician who went to the underworld to get his wife Eurydice back. He wasn’t supposed to look at her until they were out of Hades, but he did, and she vanished for good.

Rebecca ou La Grande Porteuse d’eau

(Rebecca or the Tall Water Carrier, 1927)

In the Old Testament, after Rebecca kindly drew water from a well, she was chosen to be the wife of Isaac, a Jewish patriarch.

Rebecca

Statue pour Jardin (Statue for the Garden, 1943)

Promethee (Prometheus, 1954)

Prometheus was a mythological character who stole fire from the gods for human use. This sculpture was in Zadkine's atelier.

Promethee was carved out of a nine-foot tall tree trunk. A copy is at Place Saint-Germain des Pres in the 6^th arrondissement.

The garden is filled with Zadkine’s life-sized sculptures, including the model for his masterpiece, the Rotterdam war memorial. The dramatic bronze figure has its arms stretched upward, and its torso is pierced with a jagged hole, symbolizing the damage done to the heart of Rotterdam after the Germans bombed the city in 1940.

Torse de la Ville Detruite and Maquette pour le Monument La Ville Detruite

(Torso of the Destroyed City, 1951-63) and

Scale model for the Monument of the Destroyed City (1947)

Maquette pour le Monument in Rotterdam

Torse de la Ville Detruite

Torse de la Ville Detruite

Tarnier Monument

I was walking down Rue d’Assas in order to find the Jardin du Luxembourg, which is quite near the Zadkine Museum. I came across the Tarnier Monument at the corner of Rue d’Assas and Avenue de l’Observatoire. I didn’t know who Tarnier was, but it looked as if it might be a scene from a hospital. As it turned out, Stéphane Tarnier (1828–1897) was a distinguished and highly regarded French obstetrician who practiced medicine in Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The large bas-relief, which was erected in 1905, depicts Tarnier and his incubator with a mother and her new-born child, who was saved by the use of the incubator.

The Maternité de Paris was the "lying-in" hospital for the poor women of Paris. The obstetrician Stéphane Tarnier pioneered use of incubators for premature infants at the Maternité at the end of the 19th century. Inspired by a device used to incubate poultry, Tarnier introduced prototypes of infant incubators to the Paris Maternité in 1881. These devices were basically wooden boxes with glass lids and compartments that contained hot-water bottles. He called his "baby-warming device" a "couveuse", and through it Tarnier was responsible for a 28% decrease in infant mortality over a three-year period at the Paris Maternité. Tarnier was not the inventor of the infant incubator, but was the first to apply it for regular care of the premature. Interestingly, Elizabeth Blackwell, America's first woman M.D., trained at the Maternité. She considered the training in women's and children's diseases, as well as midwifery, to be excellent.

Tarnier Monument

Tarnier, Mother and newborn baby, with incubator in the foreground

Fountain of the Observatory

La Fontaine de l’Observatoire (The Fountain of the Observatory)

La Fontaine de l'Observatoire is situated where Rue d’Assas, Avenue de l’Observatoire & Boulevard Saint Michel converge. The fountain is known by several names, including the Fontaine des Quatre Parties du Monde (Fountain of the Four Parts of the World), the Fontaine de l'Observatoire or the Fontaine Carpeaux, after the main sculptor.

Designed in 1873, the bronze masterpiece represents Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Asia is depicted by the figure of a Chinese woman with a long pigtail; Europe is represented by the figure of a white woman, and she scarcely touches the ground; Africa is represented by the figure of a black woman in a three-quarter view; and America is depicted by a female figure of an American Indian wearing a feather headdress. In this photo, Africa is facing us, and America is on her right.

Jardin Marco Polo

There are two gardens, Jardin Marco Polo and Jardin Robert Cavelier de la Salle, which form one elongated park, le Jardin de l’Observatoire. The lawns are expansive and each garden is planted with four rows of chestnut trees. Both gardens contain sculptures of allegorical figures meant to commemorate the adventurous journeys undertaken by the explorers. The Robert Cavelier de la Salle garden pays homage to the 17th century French explorer who explored the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi River. It was de la Salle who claimed the Mississippi basin as French territory. The Marco Polo garden occupies the southern half of the Jardin de l'Observatoire. It is about 3 acres in size and honors the great explorer of the same name.

　
In the Marco Polo Garden is the sculpture L’Aurore (The Dawn by Francois Jouffroy, 1870-75) with the Palais du Luxembourg in the background. “Dawn” was much lovelier when the rest of her arms were there and gracefully stretched upward.

The other statue in this garden is Le Jour (The Day by Jean-Joseph Perraud ,1870-75) The woman’s back is to us. She has a jug of water on her shoulder and is offering water to a man who is drinking it thirstily.

Four sculptors created the fountain: Louis Vuillemot carved the garlands and festoons around the pedestal, Pierre Legrain carved the armillary with interior globe decorated with zodiac signs; the

animalier Emmanuel Fremiet designed the eight prancing horses, marine turtles and spouting fish. Most importantly Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux sculpted the four nude women supporting the globe, representing the Four Continents. In this photo, China is facing us.