Cafe des Arts History: Café Guerbois and the Impressionists
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Cafe des arts history begins, in many ways, at the Café Guerbois in Paris, where Édouard Manet gathered painters and writers in the late 1860s to argue about the future of art. Regulars included Monet, Renoir, Degas, Bazille, Sisley and Émile Zola, and the circle that formed there became the core of Impressionism. In the 1870s the conversation moved to La Nouvelle Athènes on Place Pigalle, which Degas immortalized in a famous painting. Here is how these cafés incubated an art movement, and how later cafés kept the tradition alive.
Café Guerbois: Manet’s table in the Batignolles
In the 1860s, the Batignolles district on the northwest edge of Paris was home to many artists’ studios. The Café Guerbois, on what is today the avenue de Clichy, was close by and cheap, and it became the meeting place for Manet and his friends. The group met regularly, usually on Thursdays and also on Sundays, from roughly the late 1860s into the 1870s.
Manet was the natural center. He was older, already notorious for paintings like Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, and confident in debate. Around him sat younger painters who would soon be called Impressionists:
- Painters: Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley and Henri Fantin-Latour, with Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne joining occasionally.
- Writers and critics: Émile Zola, an early champion of Manet, and the critic Edmond Duranty.
- Others: friends from other fields, such as the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, and art lovers who enjoyed the company.
Because the circle lived and worked in the neighborhood, historians often call it the Batignolles group. Fantin-Latour painted several of them gathered around Manet at his easel in A Studio at Les Batignolles (1870), now in the Musée d’Orsay.
Debates, rivalries and a duel
The Guerbois was not a polite salon. Talk ranged over painting outdoors, the meaning of “modern life” as a subject, the official Salon that rejected many of them, and how to show work without its approval. Monet later recalled that these discussions sharpened his thinking and kept the group going through hard years.
Tempers ran high too. In February 1870, Manet felt insulted by a review written by Duranty and challenged him to a duel with swords. Manet wounded Duranty slightly, honor was satisfied, and the two quickly became friends again. It is the most famous story associated with the café, and it shows how seriously these men took art and reputation.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 scattered the group. Bazille, one of its most promising members, was killed in battle in November 1870 at the age of 28. When the survivors returned to Paris, the scene was changing.
La Nouvelle Athènes: the next chapter
By the second half of the 1870s, much of the circle had shifted to La Nouvelle Athènes on Place Pigalle, at the foot of Montmartre. The gatherings continued in the same spirit, with Manet and Degas among the regulars and a wider mix of writers and artists drifting in.
Degas painted the café in L’Absinthe (1876), showing two figures sitting side by side at a marble table, lost in their own thoughts. The models were his friends, the actress Ellen Andrée and the engraver Marcellin Desboutin. The painting was controversial for its bleak, unglamorous view of café life, and it is now one of the best-known images of 19th-century Paris.
The first Impressionist exhibition had opened in 1874, organized independently of the official Salon. In a sense, the café talk had worked: the artists had built their own path.
Why cafés incubated art movements
The Guerbois and the Nouvelle Athènes were part of a long pattern. Cafés have hosted new ideas since the days of the Café Procope. For artists in particular, they offered:
- A cheap, warm room. Studios were cold and cramped; a café table cost the price of a drink.
- Neutral ground. Painters, critics, writers and collectors could meet as equals.
- A regular time and place. Everyone knew where to find the group, which turned loose friendships into a movement.
- An audience. Arguments were overheard, repeated and printed, spreading ideas faster than any gallery.
Cafés of the art world: a short timeline
| Period | Café or venue | Movement or circle |
|---|---|---|
| Late 1860s | Café Guerbois, Paris | Manet and the future Impressionists |
| Late 1870s | La Nouvelle Athènes, Paris | Manet, Degas and friends |
| 1880s | Montmartre cabarets | Bohemian artists, poets and songwriters |
| 1910s–1920s | Montparnasse cafés such as Le Dôme and La Rotonde | International artists of the School of Paris |
| 1916 | Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich | Dada |
After the Impressionists: the café as studio annex
The tradition outlived the Guerbois. In the 1880s, Montmartre’s cabarets drew poets, painters and musicians. In the early 20th century, the center of gravity moved south to Montparnasse, where cafés like Le Dôme and La Rotonde welcomed artists from all over the world, including Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. In Zurich in 1916, the Dada movement was born at the Cabaret Voltaire, a performance space in a back room of a bar.
Literary cafés followed the same model in other cities, from Café Central in Vienna to the Left Bank haunts described in our article on Hemingway’s Paris cafés.
Cafe des Arts FAQ
What was the Café Guerbois?
The Café Guerbois was a Paris café in the Batignolles district where Édouard Manet and a circle of painters and writers met in the late 1860s. Regulars included Monet, Renoir, Degas, Bazille and Zola, and the group became the core of Impressionism.
Did Manet really fight a duel?
Yes. In February 1870, Manet fought the critic Edmond Duranty with swords after being offended by one of his reviews. Duranty was slightly wounded, and the two reconciled soon afterward.
Which café is shown in Degas’s L’Absinthe?
Degas set L’Absinthe (1876) at La Nouvelle Athènes on Place Pigalle. His friends Ellen Andrée and Marcellin Desboutin posed for the two figures.
Does the Café Guerbois still exist?
No. The original café has long since disappeared, though its story survives in letters, memoirs and paintings by the artists who met there.
Start your own café des arts at home
The Impressionists remind us that a good cup can fuel big ideas. Gather friends around a pot of our deep, full-bodied French Roast, or explore the character of different origins with our single origin coffees, such as the fruity Ethiopia Natural. Every Feel Espresso order is roasted 1–5 days before delivery, ready for your next late-night debate about art.