Artist fights way to Paris, sets up for Olympics

PARIS — It’s known as the City of Light, and it’s also known as the City of Love. 

Not just a place where we fall in love with each other, but a place where we fall in love with the city itself. 

And in this City of Light, one particular place ­— Montmartre — is a beacon to artist and musicians. 

“It just has a different atmosphere,” said Agnes Beganyi, an artist who paints in Montmartre. “It kind of attracts artists, like a magnet or something.” 

For Beganyi, Montmarte, perched on a hill near the famous Sacre Couer Basilica, means everything. 

‘It’s a honor’

“For an artist, it’s an honor to be here,” she said. 

Names like Renoir and Vincent Van Gogh walked these streets, and continue to light the way. 

“Hope to kind of continue the tradition in some way,” said Beganyi. “It’s good to work on the same streets and see kind of the same views. It’s like confirming that even though the world’s changed so much, art is still a living thing.”

To hear her talk, you’d think she was born here — and in a way, she was. 

“It really marked my childhood,” she said. 

Beganyi first visited Paris on a bus trip after winning an art competition when she was only 9. 

“It took like two days to arrive, and we were listening to Celine Dion and everything you can imagine,” she said. “It was like a very cliche movie. We went to the Champs Elysee, we went to a coffee, we made photos everywhere.” 

Exhilarating for a small girl — and even more so when you hear of the life she left. 

‘A different future’

“I saw a totally different future as a child,” Beganyi said. 

She was born in Hungary, just after the fall of communism. 

“Stay there, struggle,” she said. “No one thought that they would live abroad, and live from art. It wasn’t an option. My parents and my grandparents’ generation, they were all used to that communist atmosphere, when you have to tell on your friends, which brings that to the society.” 

Her dreams fell by the wayside. Beganyi studied law, but never forgot what that 9-year-old felt. 

“I came here 10 years ago,” she said. 

She fought her way back to Paris, and what Beganyi paints is her first love. 

“I love Eiffel Tower, I am a tourist here,” she said. 

Place de Tertre

And on particular square — Place du Tertre in Montmarte — was yet another dream that felt out of reach. 

“I thought it would be great, but it would never happen,” she said. 

It’s a place where artists can hopefully make a living, setting up their easels in a spot where tourists often come by specifically looking to buy some art. 

A place where Beganyi now has a permit to paint. 

“When I got the permit, it was like confirmation that it made sense to make all this effort,” she said. 

This is the first year she’s made enough money painting to survive — the first year she can call this square home. 

“I still don’t understand how did it happen,” she said. “It was really like my perfect dream.”

And with the Olympics in town, she’s hoping others will see Paris the way she did as a small girl — hoping that those who wouldn’t have otherwise visited the city will be filled with a desire to come back. 

Proving that the City of Love may be the City of Light, because of the light people like her brought with them. 

“I really didn’t see this coming.” Beganyi said. “For me, it was really a dream.”