Midnight in Les Deux Magots

Have you ever wondered what Paris would look like during its great artistic period? 

Why artists as Hemingway, Picasso and Dali chose to live there, where they were free to unleash their creativity. Have you ever wanted to slip into the skin of Owen Wilson, in the film Midnight in Paris just to have the opportunity, for one night, one wonderful night, to have a conversation with the artists that changed the course of 19th and 20th century art? 

Give up on what you’re doing and give yourself to Paris, you have a rendez-vous with the literary and intellectual elite of the city, around a century ago. Don’t be shy and push the open door of Les Deux Magots. Discover the pioneering creativity of the artists that revealed themselves there. Good times are back again.
The first thing you will probably see are the two statues that represent Chinese “mandarins” or “magicians”, that gave their name to the Café: Les Deux Magots. Magot literally means “Stocky figurine from the Far East”, there are two of them in the famous café.

Around 1885, you could have met writers like Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé or Arthur Rimbaud. After a Symbolic conversation with Rimbaud, discussing the famous sinking of the boat of his famous first-person narrative Drunken Boat, you would have had to wait for the end of one of his passionate dispute with Verlaine. After which, you could have had the opportunity to chat with the latter about Les Amies, illustrated by Jean Gabriel Daragnès. The final sonnet describes the suicide of Sappho, antique patroness of lesbians and poetry. We are at the dawn of the 20th century, and Les Deux Magots already plays an active role in the cultural life of Paris. It is a safe place where artists can offend the moral values of their peers, expressing thoughts and dreams then forbidden.
Take another step forward. You are now in 1920, just after la Belle époque, les Années Folles. The «Roaring Twenties» is a period during which Paris was experiencing a social, artistic and cultural boom. Cafés around Paris became places where artists, writers and others gathered to create the “Café Society”. At Les Deux Magots, you would have met the Surrealists, led by André Breton. You might have talked with him about one of his esteemed colleague and precursor of his movement: Apollinaire. Indeed, his famous Calligrammes inspired André Breton for his poem Pièce Fausse in the book Clair de Terre published in 1923 and his most famous book Les Pas Perdus in 1924.
In 1933, in opposition to the Prix Goncourt, judged too academic, the Surrealists decide to create their own literary awards, called “Le Prix des Deux Magots”. This appears as a crucial turning point in the literary legend of the Café. American writers of the Lost Generation as F.S. Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway, but also artists exiled from dictatorships in Spain and Yugoslavia will now meet in Paris, with painters of the School of Paris, like Marc Chagall. Paris became a cultural and artistic melting pot, where everybody was feeling free to express one’s own talent or join any artistic movement, no matter the ideology.

See more artworks by Marc Chagall.

You are now in 1938, it is your final step in this historical and cultural trip in Paris. You could have witnessed a real and deep friendship between Wilfredo Lam and Picasso. Embarked on opposite but converging paths, their love for freedom was evident.

During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona, the Republican capital of Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco on January 26, 1939 . At the same time, Breton introduces Wilfredo Lam to Pierre Mabille, a man of great knowledge. During a meeting at Les Deux Magots, Mabille was deeply touched by the discretion of the Cuban, who actually showed extraordinary philosophical but also artistic skills. Furthermore, he was impressed by his elegant designs and the way he could represent a confusing freedom. He decided to show his work. Close your eyes and imagine for a second the ultimate success for Lam. Picasso, one of the most inspiring people in his life, telling him: “I’ve never been wrong about you. You are a painter.”
Our journey of about 50 years is coming to an end. If you are in Paris, you can still visit this café, that has become mythical, and where many talents have marched, debated different points of view, succeeded or even failed. Where the art and greatest movements of the century were born and raised, for the love of art and freedom.

Sources:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/franco-captures-barcelona
http://www.wifredolam.net
http://www.lesdeuxmagots.fr/
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism
https://www.biography.com/people/pablo-picasso-9440021