Paris, part 3

For my last hours left in Paris (I left at 11pm on a red-eye bus), I wandered from the grand palais to the Louvre, a path that took me straight through place de la concorde - the wintery sunlight was beautiful! 

and into jardin des tuileries...

The pools and gardens were bare due to the December weather but on such a clear day, they were still wonderful to walk through!

I love this view...didn't make it down to the arc de triomphe this trip but love how you can see it through this arch near the louvre! 

(such an attentive group of children listening to their teacher as they walked through! I was impressed)

Headed into the museum straight to the Northern European wing (dutch/netherlandish/flemish/some german painting) to begin with...

Durer's self-portrait at 22 - impressive copy by this woman (there were multiple people painting copies on easels throughout the Louvre...I'm guessing it had to be sponsored by the museum)

English aristocratic portraits by Dutch artists are always classics...this portrait of King Charles I is infused with typical Van Dyck swagger, the signature attitude he gives the people he paints

and then there was this beautiful object...truly, a masterpiece.

I kept stopping to look out the windows on my way around the building...it was something I've never appreciated the past three or four times I've been there and was actually surprised by the views!

This is the view through a (rather dirty) window towards Sacre Coeur! Definitely gave me a better appreciation for how high up Montmartre is

Next I headed towards the cafe just off of the room housing Delacroix and David...but was interrupted in my quest for food by these monumental paintings. I truly cannot get enough of the French Romantic Eugene Delacroix...my thesis (of which he was the subject) fostered my mild obsession with his work...

and my absolute favorite...Gericault

Quiche and an espresso rejuvenated me

and I was off to the Italian paintings! 

I really love these paintings below...when you look closely, you can see that the profiles are made entirely out of plants! These two represent two of the seasons, winter and autumn. Arcimboldo, the artist, was Italian but painted at the court of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in Prague. Paintings like these were not meant to be jokes but instead loaded allegories...along the lines of if the emperor can control and command nature & the natural elements (by manipulating them in this way) so he can command the empire/world/universe...and in many of the paintings, there are academic jokes...mannerist courts were all about creating a culture of intellectual elitism and Arcimboldo was a major player in these circles, particularly in his paintings for the Hapsburgs.

 Other highlights were Veronese's Marriage at Cana

Leonardo's Madonna on the Rocks

and images of the crazy Venetian carnivals

sometimes I forgot how incredibly large some of these paintings are - you really just have to look up at them with awe

After finishing at the Louvre, the sun was just setting...and I thought there was no better place to watch the sun set then la tour eiffel. I'd actually never been up the eiffel tower because I lived there in the summer and each time we went, we just brought wine, cheese, and baguettes and drank (far too much) in the park in front - no fun to wait in long lines when you can lounge on the grass in front of the thing. This time though, I was alone, and in early December, there were zero lines to walk up the tower and it was less than 4 euros - why not!

Unfortunately, because of the cold, my phone (camera) died as soon as I got up to the first level, but did manage a few pics. No matter, the image is imprinted in my memory - it was truly breathtaking to see the sun setting on the city and the buildings bathed in the golden wintery sunlight. Totally worth it!

and so ends my day. 

All in all...although feet hurt, it was a spectacular, though rather brief, visit to one of my favorite cities. I certainly hit up my favorites and was so excited to see les bohemes and l'impressionisme et la mode, as well as take a trip through the Louvre and see so many of the works I've been studying the past few months (really good place to test myself before I look at the labels, and so much more fun than doing it via powerpoint in the library)

goodbye paris, until next time!! 

Paris, part deux

After the compulsory cafe au lait + croissant breakfast, I headed out early to le grand palais for another exhibition I was beyond excited about, Les Bohèmes. 

An exploration into the sources of the bohemian ideal that has inspired countless artists throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this exhibition covered the subject through the ages, from Roman times to Victor Hugo's Esmerelda in Notre Dame de Paris

Beginning in Roman times, outsiders who lived on the fringes of society were well-documented in writings, drawings, and paintings - they were thought to be from Egypt, hence the name gypsy.

These people were part of Renaissance culture as well...they're captured in Leonardo's grotesque heads sketch - he likely did this as an exercise in sketching faces but it was certainly drawn from direct observation of these mysterious people.

I loved this picture...the details are so amusing! The face of the woman on the far right is incredible and  you have to look closely to see that the man in the center is being pit-pocketed from both sides.

The gypsies were confused with the idea of the bohemian in sixteenth and seventeenth century western Europe...these nomadic, exotic people existed the outside of polite society. Bohemians were actually Christian immigrants from Byzantium and Bohemia. Their darker complexions and distinct dress set them apart. 

Van Gogh painted this gypsy caravan that visited Arles, France, where he lived at the time in the 1880s.

In painting, the bohemian gypsy made a perfect foil to the young, beautiful maiden aesthetically...in these paintings, the gypsy is usually playing the role of traveling fortune-teller.

This idea of a traveling, nomadic existence of a bohemian who didn't adhere to the law was appealing to artists in the nineteenth century. They embraced the idea fully, choosing to exist in poverty in their ateliers and live out the romantic ideal they had of these bohemians...this room in the exhibition was decked out in ripped wallpaper and it was made to look like an attic that a romantic artist would have lived in.

I love this picture...this is a self-portrait of Delacroix, French romantic artist of the nineteenth century who fully embraced this idea (and I wrote my thesis on him!)

The next room explored the whole atelier idea and put paintings on literal easels with drips of paint as if that was where they were painted.

This painting by Van Gogh, Shoes, was exciting to me because I had just read Heidegger, Shapiro, and Derrida's comments on the painting - so neat to see the thing I've been reading about for ages right in front of me! 

This portrait of Charles Baudelaire was also a personal highlight...perhaps my favorite piece of writing of ALL time is Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life....

...I think I've read his essay at least 25 times.

The next section had to do with the cafe culture and nightclub culture in Montmartre - this was the original sign from Le Chat Noir.

And this room was set up like an actual cafe! The paintings around the sides showed figures at cafes in Paris - really amazing the effort they put into each room. 

This bohemian artist culture was at its height between the Romantic and Realist periods. The talented, intentionally impoverished, mysterious, romantic individuals no longer appealed to princes for patronage - they indulged in their tortured existence, acting as independent, solitary geniuses in their artistic endeavors. This kind of artist became a heroic figure to writers like Cervantes. 

Both gypsy and the bohemian artist were free spirits, wanderers, social outcasts, elusive, shrewd, secretive misfits...it is no wonder that artists were fascinated by the enchanting gypsies and immigrants from Bohemia. It was such a great opportunity to understand the origins of the idea and why it appealed to these artists we know so well.

Left le grand palais and popped into Shakespeare & Co for a bit to sit and read upstairs...the quirky place is always calm and has interesting books on the shelves (upstairs is a reading room and downstairs a functioning bookshop)

LOVED this bookend...

This is what a reading room should be.

Headed back to the apartment stopping only for a fresh baguette, brie cheese, and a good, dry Bordeaux - perfectly satisfying dinner. 

Paris, part 1

I booked a very last minute trip to Paris this week! I finished class on Friday, the Winter Ball at Goodenough College was Saturday night (no pictures, sadly, my phone died), so I had from Monday until I went home on Thursday in front of me...no better time to go!

I stayed with a friend of a friend who I met 3 days earlier but it was perfect! Didn't have to pay for a place to stay and he was super nice! Above is the view from his bedroom window.

Stop #1 was the Musee D'Orsay...it houses basically ALL the impressionist paintings in Paris. There was an exhibition I had heard about called "L'impressionisme et la mode" or "Impressionism and Fashion." The exhibition put side by side paintings and then the dresses that were worn in those paintings, in one case the exact one that was painted!

The rest were dresses that were the same style and/or fabric as the ones in the paintings...impressionists like Renoir, Monet, Manet, etc were famous for painting from real life - they painted contemporary fashions (even though they would go out of date quickly) because they were interested in the ephemerality of life and what constituted "modernity"

The scenes they painted are just scenes from everyday life, like the one above. The dress below is the same style and fabric as the one the woman sitting in front is wearing...

Here is another example! Loved this painting...so elegant 

and this is what her dress would have been

It was so neat to see them up close! 

The exhibition traced fashion through the 1800s - you could see the evolution of the waist and bustle and how certain styles evolved and went in and out of fashion as it went along.

It was also organized by theme...this last part was "en plein air" pictures, and the woman sitting below with her skirt around her on the picnic blanket would have been wearing something really similar to the summer dress below

Such a cool exhibition! And the best part was that I got in for free by virtue of being a student in the EU. Woohoo!

I wandered around the rest of the museum afterwards...LOTS of works by Van Gogh

love his brushwork - the thick blobs of paint are a technique called impasto 

this is the museum from the other side of the Seine...

...and this was my walk back to meet marco for lunch! Such a lovely day outside.

"love locks" on one of the bridges

I actually had 2 papers - unfinished - waiting for me that are due thursday...but totally worth leaving them for the last minute to see this and see Paris with zero tourists on such a beautiful sunny day! Not feeling very guilty...