Le Passe-muraille, Sculpture in Montmartre, Paris, France
Le Passe-muraille is a bronze sculpture by Jean Marais, installed on the Place Marcel Aymé in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. It shows a man half-embedded in a wall, one arm reaching outward, caught in the act of stepping through.
The sculpture was put in place in 1989 as a tribute to the writer Marcel Aymé, who lived and died in the nearby Rue Norvins. It refers to his 1943 short story of the same name, in which an ordinary man discovers he can walk through walls.
The face of the figure is actually modeled on Marcel Aymé himself, the writer after whom the square is named. Jean Marais chose this detail as a personal tribute to his friend, linking the fictional character directly to the man who invented him.
The sculpture stands on a small square off Rue Norvins in Montmartre, a short walk from the Abbesses metro station. Visiting early in the morning or in the late afternoon gives you more space to look at it, as the area gets very busy during the day.
Jean Marais was primarily known as a film actor, a close friend of Jean Cocteau, and only turned to sculpture later in his life. Le Passe-muraille is one of his best-known works in that medium, making it a rare case of a celebrated actor leaving a permanent mark on a Parisian street.
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