A BOHEMIAN COMPOSER IN PARIS IN THE LAST QUARTER OF NINETEENTH CENTURY: MONTMARTE PERIOD OF ERIK SATIE 1887-1898
ON DOKUZUNCU YÜZYILIN SON ÇEYREĞİNDE PARİS’TE BİR BOHEM BESTECİ: ERİC SATİE’NİN MONTMARTE DÖNEMİ 1887-1898

Author : Jülide GÜNDÜZ
Number of pages : 84-101

Abstract

Montmartre, which was an untouched and modest neighborhood in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, had been a place where the anti-bourgeoisie, the bohemian, and the artist prototype living in a dream world socialized and took shelter, as a reaction against Baron Haussman’s obligatory same type architectural aesthetic in Paris. After quitting his education at the conservatory, Erik Satie moved to Montmartre where he lived continuously between 1887-1898, during which he had developed his artistic identity independent of the intense Wagnerian effect of the period. Contamine de Latour, as the closest witness to Satie’s life during this process, guided Satie on his choices of literature and painting. Satie discovered the painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and symbolist writers who had been his major influences during this period, while experiencing mysticism, which had been his interest since his adolescent years, in Paledan’s Rose-Croix cult. While working as a pianist in Chat Noir, which was the first artistic cabaret in the world, he had witnessed some interdisciplinary interactions among the prestigious artists of the period. He was especially influenced by the design in a shadow theatre, and humorist Alphonse Allais. Satie created his miniatures with three movements in Montmartre while the Wagnerian effect was very strong on French art at the last quarter of the century. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, the two important composers who guided French music, had been in close contact with Satie all through his life, thus, contributing to his recognition

Keywords

Erik Satie, Chat Noir, shadow theatre, Wagnerism

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