Chapter 29 II Departure from Montparnasse to the war (1) The collapse of Cubism

On this day, there was a thunderbolt in everyone's heart. Joseph Delteil (1894-1978), French writer. Yu Bu lacked reason. The same goes for the 20th century.It had just entered the age of reason and brought the world to war. On June 28, 1914, Archduke François Ferdinand fell to the bullets of Serbian fanatics. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. On July 31, Germany issued an ultimatum to France and Russia.On the same day, Jean Jaures (1859-1914), a French politician and writer, opposed the government's colonial policy and the war.assassinated. On August 1st, the French national mobilization. On August 2, the French army walked out of the military academies and barracks in Paris under the bright sunshine. Soldiers wearing helmets and red flowers on their guns, amidst the tinkling sound of swords, swords, and bayonets, fought in the battle. Under the leadership of the military band with the national flag, they marched aggressively along the avenues of Paris to the train stations.Heavy cavalry, dragoons, artillery, snipers and infantry shouted the same slogan with one voice: hit Berlin!They plan to get there in a week and take their prize - Kaiser, Kaiser of Germany from 1871 to 1918.Back to Paris just as quickly.

In Paris, people gathered in the taverns of Montparnasse to toast and celebrate victory.On the eve of the war, the artists in Montmartre, and those who settled in Montmartre to escape the flames of war, followed Picasso across the Seine to Montparnasse on the left bank.As a result, the Valwan Avenue in Montparnasse replaced the "Smart Rabbit" in Montmartre and became the area with the highest concentration of artists from Montmartre.They sowed on Montmartre, on the right bank of the Seine, but will reap in Montparnasse. The Lilac Garden Tavern no longer organizes balls because it has become bourgeois.Anisette went from six to eight sous.To avoid repression, painters and artists came down from the mountains to observe the situation.They pushed open the door and entered two larger pubs located on both sides of Wawan Street: Dom and Luo Tongde.The former tavern opened fifteen years earlier than the second.The Dom Tavern has three halls for Germans, Scandinavians and Americans to play pool.Luo Tongde has two major advantages: a slot machine and a large platform for the sun.Not long after, he expanded, annexing two neighboring taverns, the Parnas and the Petite Napolitan.Artists often meet here to boo Kaiser, the German emperor.

On August 2, Vawan Avenue was no different from other intersections.It's just that on its south side, people are organizing celebrations to send off the army to the battlefield. The crowds in Rotonde are bustling, while the Dome on the north side is empty. The Germans abandoned the pool table and slipped away.From then on, they can only show off on the other side of the national border.Even then the poor painters, who had until then believed that art knew no borders, sadly accompanied their Germanic friends to the railway station where they were summoned by the Emperor Guillaume.They go, booed by the crowd, to Berlin or Munich.

At that time, fanatical anti-Germanic sentiment was brewing in all sectors of society.Art cannot escape this law.The day after the "Bearskin" auction, "Paris Noon" published an article reflecting the common thinking of the people: The grotesque, comical and ugly works of some unpopular foreigners are sold at sky-high prices... In this way, the virtues of propriety and order in our national art will gradually disappear. Taoser Tannhauser, German poet and composer.and his compatriots will be very happy that instead of buying Picasso, they will remove for free from the Louvre whatever art they want to steal, and those weak-willed or anarchists who pretend to be elegant The socialist intellectuals are powerless and helpless.There is no doubt that these people have become the enemy's accomplices and accomplices intentionally or unconsciously.

[Excerpt from Paris Noon, March 3, 1914] Apollinaire showed all his abilities at this time.He violently attacked Romain Rolland and all pacifist writers who only talked about peace and did not participate in any struggle.He spoke out for promoting and motivating an "anti-German" national sentiment. When the book "Alcohol" was published, he was sure that the Germans had already translated the first poem "Region" in "Alcohol" into German without paying even a mark for the copyright.He said: They plundered all the time, and when they were not burning French churches, they stole the works of French poets.

There would be no peace in Europe without André Gide's fervent advocacy of Franco-German reconciliation.Was André Gide one of the few advocates of reconciliation because he had never been to war?For a long time, no one listened to him, French literature of that era until the 1930s has been deeply influenced by Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915), French writer, symbolist critic , Review Writer.The imprint of narrow patriotism raised at the end of the 19th century. In 1917, it even developed to change Cologne (German city) perfume to Louvain (Belgian city) perfume, German shepherd to Alsatian shepherd, Berlin street to Liege (Belgian province name) street, Richard · Wagner (German composer) Street to Alberic-Maniar (French composer).Paul Leotto concluded indignantly: "I hope that when peace is achieved, it will be changed to Victory Street."

Luo Tongde's is a little out of the ordinary: here, the nationalist sentiment is not as strong as in other pubs.When the troops were marching on the street, the owner of the tavern, old Libion, had been pouring tea and wine to the customers in the innermost part of the tavern since the morning.He also takes out the old wine that has been stored in the cellar for many years for guests to enjoy.He was wearing a very ordinary gray suit, pinched his waist with one hand, and stroked his mustache with the other, watching the troops walking north along Linyin Avenue.Some women threw flowers to the young soldiers along the roadside.Officers in black uniforms and red trousers saluted everyone in a heroic manner.All the troops sang "Marseillaise".

When passing by Luo Tongde Tavern, the singing of the soldiers became louder and louder, and the lyrics also changed.Both the army and the onlookers on the side of the road booed some young people.In fact, they are also toasting the smooth march, but they are not wearing military uniforms but colorful shirts, and their skin colors are different from ours.Moraes shouted in a harsher voice: "Gringoes get out of France!" It was obvious at a glance that those young people were indeed not natives: their accents, their clothes, their behavior, their thinking all proved that they were not our natives.Some of them come from very distant countries, while others have customs similar to theirs, and most of them don't know where they come from.They all avoided the large crowd following the troops, some standing on the sidewalk or the side of the road.

That day, there was also a misunderstanding.One by one the gringos took refuge in the tavern, behind old Libion's curtain, not because they were weak, but to avoid insult.They did not speak because they had orders from two of them, the Italian Liciotto Canudo and the Swiss Blaise Sandras: During their stay in France, foreign friends in France learned to love France, to be attached to France, to regard France as their second motherland, and to deeply feel the need to extend a helping hand to it. Wherever born, for all who live here, whether intellectuals, students, workers, and all healthy people, we have found in France the means of living, let us unite, unite as one, voluntarily for the great Let France make our contribution.

They did not speak because August 1 of this year happened to be Saturday, and they went to the conscription station to enlist in the army while they waited for Monday to come. Monday is here.The first to arrive at the conscription post were the Poles.Nearly a thousand of them marched to St. Dominic Street to enroll in the army.After signing up, they held their registration cards and flocked to the Knights Square to buy the military coats, trousers, tops and military caps needed for the battlefield. In just a few weeks, the Laundryboat gang parted for good, and their Montparnasse brethren left the land on which they had been raised.They all set off to the northern battlefield, fighting to defend the motherland that raised them--France.Apollinaire, who was in Nice at the time, joined the army there.Pablo Picasso sends Braque and Derain to battle at the Avignon train station.Moise Kisling returned to France from the Netherlands specifically to enlist in the army.He was accompanied by Bryce Sandras, Louis Malgusi, Osip Zadekien...

On August 2, the chairman of the Autumn Art Fair and the enlightened person Franz Jourdin exclaimed: "Cubism has finally completely disintegrated." The ideas of de Segonzac and their contemporaries Carco and Marc Orland, not to mention Modigliani and the Italian-Chilean painter Ortiz Zarate who refused to join the army.Diego de Rivera accompanied Brancusi (1876-1957), Romanian sculptor of the Paris School. , Gris and Picasso stayed. Fujita went to London, then to Spain, and finally returned to Paris.Parson stayed in England for a while before going to the United States.Picabia and Marcel Duchamp had arrived in America before him.What about Delaunay?He needs an excuse.Some people said that he was discharged because of a neurological problem.Sandras, like many others, disowned him, so he simply hid in Spain and Portugal with his wife Sonia. What happened in Montmartre and Montparnasse in the days and weeks that followed?The streets and alleys were empty; due to the curfew, the Tianyihei Tavern was forced to close; the Brier Ballroom was transformed into a military warehouse; The mayor of the district, Fernand Bruno, a professor and grammar expert at the Sorbonne University, resigned from the university to concentrate on work in the district, where he organized porridge donations to the impoverished poor.But the remaining painters still suffered from poverty and hunger. The "beehive" houses were expropriated for refugees from the Champagne department who came to Paris.The original green lawn has now become a vegetable garden, and the trees have been felled for firewood.One morning in winter, the janitor who often sprayed the tenants with water in summer went upstairs and entered Chagall’s studio (Chagall went to Vitebsk, Belarus for vacation on the eve of the war, but failed to return, and returned to France in 1923), Empty everything inside.After confirming that all the paintings had been waterproofed, he went down to the first floor with satisfaction.Holding the painter's work in hand, he walked to his hut whose ceiling was severely damaged.After quickly removing those broken ceilings, they replaced the just-removed ceilings with those protections that fell from the sky - Chagall's paintings.