Monday, July 19, 2010

2010 FRANCE * PARIS (July 19-23)

Travel is joy.  Art is passion.  

“Quand on n'aime pas trop, on n'aime pas assez.”    ~  Bussy-Rabutin 
French Flag hanging from the Arc de Triomphe for Independence Day, July 14
PARIS !!

Saturday & Sunday : promenade
Luxembourg Gardens
My first two wonderful days in Paris I walked and walked with no map or idea of where I was nor where I was going.  I explored the area around my hotel, from the Luxembourg Garden and Montparnasse to Notre Dame, then I took the subway to the Eiffel Tower and walked from there to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees to the Place de la Concorde across the Seine to the Orsay Museum.  I was constantly rather "lost", simply wandering, so each new place was "discovered" as I would come around a corner, or wonder "what is that building ahead that has such an amazing cornice", or be studying something else amazing and look up and POW!  Notre Dame.  Awesome!


Rodin's Burgess of Calais
Later I went to the Rodin Museum which is one of my favorite spots. Partially because of my understanding of his life from the film “Camille Claudel”.  There was a whole room of his house dedicated to her work.  One of her pieces that moves me tremendously is in each of these museums.  The one at the Orsay seems to have a slight edge in how the hands were placed … just a slight distance between them creating a tension as powerful as that in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.  Electric!  Also the “Burgess of Calais” which is one of the most expressive works of art ever created, in my estimation.  Theemotions shown on each of the men’s faces speak volumes of their decision to sacrifice themselves to save their city.  Their feelings carry through every tendon of their bodies, hands, legs, and feet. 

I walked back to my hotel Atelier Montparnasse on Rue Vavin … aching, exhausted, but with a full heart.


Monday & Tuesday : Open Tour
Finally off my feet and on the Open Tour bus.  Listening to the French explanations for practice - like yesterday evening on the television.  There’s a program like CNN that repeats the news every half hour.  
That helps me pick up more and more French.

The Open Bus is good.  It’s a double-decker bus that stops and picks up at many sites in the city.  The heat is nearly unbearable at over 90 every day.  But that is Paris in the summer.  Most Parisians are out of the city to vacation and the city is filled with tourists.  Constantly there are a variety of languages.  I try to do my best to absorb French, but I have few people to speak to this week.  The great people at the hotel .. a black woman, an Asian man, and a native French woman.  They are great, but I see them rarely.  Once I order at a restaurant or a store, I become hesitant with my French.  Thankfully next week I will be in Miramas with Chanh’s sister, Marie, and should have a much better chance to use the language.

In the outdoor Paris cafés all the chairs face out toward the street.  And after my requests of a cool beer “citron” (like in Lyon) I learn the French drink only rosé wine in the summer – so it’s rosé for me now.  I find the French have acquired one of the best original creations of the United States:  jazz.  There’s jazz on the subways, on the street, at the Lyon Opera club and just about everywhere.  They do it better here than in Maine.  (I wish I could find such an opulence of jazz at home.)

This day I finally got inside the Notre Dame where it is quiet-ish (considering so many tourists).  The windows are beautiful.  There are two modern windows and I am not sure why.  But here, as in much of Paris and the museums, there is a blanketing cover of a charcoal grey greasy dust.  It surprises me that the museums, monuments, and churches are not cleaned and cared for better.  Dust does not a great impression make.

The Eiffel Tower is a creamed coffee brown. I’m not sure what I thought – perhaps a verdigris? – but it is a soft milk chocolate brown.  It takes tons of paint and many men who have no problem with vertigo to paint it when needed.  Today there are hundreds spot lights that cover the tower and at night twinkle every hour.  Originally it was hundreds of gaslights that did the illuminating – and who ever lit them all?

Ah, and the Paris Opera House.  Partly under reconstruction, but the main lobbies and a glance into the Opera itself are opulent and beautiful.  I got a couple shots just outside Box 5 and texted Christyn to let her know I was “there.”  Another impressive building in Paris.


back stairwell at the Louvre
Wednesday : Louvre
Finally!  My day for the Louvre.  My first views of the Venus de Milo, la Giaconda (Mona Lisa), and Winged Victory were amazingly crowded.   I took a chance to go back one more time before I left and had a better view of each.  Amazing how at 9:30am there was a short line outside the crystal pyramid and by about 11 am, the line stretched around the pyramid, out toward the Sully section and into the Court Carrée, the adjoining courtyard.  (If you go, be sure to go about 9:30.  The museum opens at 9am and there’s probably a waiting line before it opens, but once open that section goes quickly but don’t wait until after 10 to get in… you will have a long slow stand in line.) 

There are also certain sections of the museum where the air-conditioning seems to be up to speed.  In some spots you can actually stand over the AC duct.  Otherwise it can be rather stuffy and dusty as in other museums and highlights of Paris.  I thought it would take at least two days, but I was satisfied with the nearly 11 hours I spent on this Wednesday (the Louvre is open 9am to 10pm on Wednesdays). I was there from about 9:30 am to 7:30pm.  I saw just about everything, especially the sections I wanted, and had a lunch of quiche with salad, and an afternoon snack of espresso, a small ice cream, fruit cup, and Madeline.  With a soak in the tub and massaging my feet a bit, and a touch of the perennial Parisian rosé with a light dinner, I’m tired but nearly back to normal.  Full heart and tired body.

Nymph and Scorpion (Bartolini)
There is a French artist named Dubreuil.  He was a painter for King Henry IV around 1600.   There are other new-to-me artists that I must research:  Delatour (clear pastels), Valenciennes (travel oil sketches), Prud’hon (beautiful light and expression), and rediscover Fragonard whose brush-work is freer than I remember.  I must also check Guillaume 1er Coustov – an amazing portrait sculpture who worked in raw terra cotta beautifully.   The Louvre permits non-flash photography, but what photographer leaves
the camera battery only partially charged … ?    (Thankfully I have my iPhone as backup.)

The Nymph and Scorpion (Bartolini) is beautiful, graceful, tragic.  I’m listening to an Italian father explain the sculpture to his two children (around ten).  He explains what happened with the scorpion and the progressive deadly effects of the toxin in the young girl’s body.  I understand just a few words, but his intensity is extraordinary and the children were enraptured.  The very slight frown on the maiden’s forehead, just at the moment of realizing what has occurred, yet just before the dawn of acknowledgement of what is to come.  She is beautifully alive and graceful .. at the instant that Death is imminent. 


Napoleon III Apartments
By accident I learn that part of the Louvre was originally a fortress and there are remnants of towers deep in the basement.  One wing is an older section that remains with ornate walls and ceilings in the galleries.   Another is Napoleon III’s apartments and are ridiculously ornate.  The poor French .. after the kings .. the Napoleons?  And in the Louvre no less!  Maybe, at the very least, the Napoleons did not have plethora of palaces like Louis XVI?


I leave the Louvre in a light rain.  A man offers to sell me an umbrella for 5 Euro (.. madame, moins?) but to me the cool damp is a welcome relief.  The storm breaks in the distance creating beautiful, misty layers of the Obelisk, Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower, back-lit by a soft golden light. 


Friday was the day at the Chateau Versailles.  The light was beautiful and a storm brought in some amazing clouds, just enough to make some great photos.  Another palace, more opulence, tons of walking because the palace and gardens cover acres and acres of ground.  Beautiful.  Exhausting.

Versailles
PARIS info
Paris info 
Versailles info

[apologies for the low resolution photos .. these were transferred from an old website and will be updated to high resolution ASAP]

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