Musee de Rodan 4-01-15

Today we went to Musee de Rodan, he's a very famous sculptor of the

early 20th century.  It's a fairly small museum on the left bank in the 6th Arr. that has his studio, home, and garden.  We had continuing windiness today so we're still searching out museums where we can be inside or have a sheltered outside area.  The Delacroix museum has a garden like that and this museum has one as well.  I really love his work and he was right in the thick of things with the leading lights in Parisian art and sculpture of that time period.   I've highlighted a few of his works here.   Hope you enjoy them.



Across the street from St. Germain de Pres


















This has been compared to a sculptural Guernica, but made for a town in the Netherlands that was bombed and heavily damaged by Germany during WWII

A couple of his studies for larger sculptures which I don't think were ever cast in a larger format, however I'm not certain.









One more below:





APRIL FOOLS!!!!  It's actually the Musee Zadkine, Ossip Zadkine a very well known Russian sculptor who was active from the 20's through the 60's.

 Rodan is actually a large Japanese monster.  See we're not the only Ploucs

We Three Kings of Rennaisance are ! 3-31-15

We went to the Musee de Luxemborg today to see an exhibition on the Tudor regents of England, from Henry VII through Elizabeth I and I thought how interesting that we have now seen portraits of all three kings, England, France, and Spain from the 15th Century.  Specifically, Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V of Spain and Austria.   So here for your viewing pleasure are their portraits. 

Henry VIII

Francis I

Charles V Charles V bis 

 Of course, Charles V was from our trip to Spain a few years back but what the hey....   The two exhibitions here in Paris have been really interesting to see.  Famous portraits of Francis I, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, and  Elizabeth I,  all in one place so no need to traipse all over the map to see them.  A big plus was seeing the Holbein drawings which in my opinion are some of the loveliest works on paper I've ever seen.

More Blog Bites from Deb 3-30-15

***Vignettes from Deb: Several people have said they couldn’t tell whether it was Deb or Warren writing, so now Deb is italicized.

 

***Bikes all over Paris, with people riding blithely amidst the huge busses, trucks and crazy motorcyclists. Lots of the taupe-colored Velib bikes in use. Velib is the public bike sharing system here (like the one Denver has, but much bigger.) and it’s the biggest one of its kind in the world except for those in China. There are something like 20,000 bikes available and ~1250 stations in the greater Paris metro area. You see people on the bikes all over, and nifty little conveyances that pick up a bunch of bikes to get them transported back to the heavy-use stations.

 

*** But it’s the bicyclists that are the interesting part. Almost no one wears helmets, but a small number of people have day-glow vests that they slip on over their coats. The age and dress variety makes for fun people watching. A few minutes observation from a sidewalk café at rush hour included: dozens of fashionable young women pedaling in high heels, even the bizarre platform ones / several dignified gentlemen in expensive overcoats with adroitly tied mufflers, and their briefcases tied on the back of their bikes / a half-dozen women in their late sixties to mid-seventies keeping up nicely with the pack / a nicely dressed, forty-ish mom with a pre-teen son nearly as big as she riding on the luggage rack behind her / and of course, lots of fit young guys setting speed and testosterone records weaving maniacally through traffic.

 

***A sure sign of spring (besides the fact that every bit of gardenable soil in town is blooming) is that the Wallace fountains have been turned on. These fountains are one of my favorite symbols of Paris. In the 1870’s an Englishman, Sir Richard Wallace inherited a fortune from his father, and decided to share it with his beloved France. Clean water was a rare resource in Paris, and water-borne diseases were still widespread. Wallace had several models of cast iron fountains designed, including wall mounted and freestanding pillar shaped ones, but the best known is the big, 9’ tall one with four caryatids supporting a dome. Water falls in a small stream from the center of the dome. There used to be hundreds of these, all financed by Wallace. There are now around 70 of the big fountains left, and a handful of the other models, all still dispensing clean water from March through November. They are a godsend, not only to the homeless, but also to thirsty, grubby-handed travelers like me.

 

***We’ve been amassing a mental collection of Paris courtyards and passages. Often hidden behind the huge doors on the street are little quiet oases with potted trees and flowering plants sitting on worn cobblestones, sometimes rutted from years of carriage wheels. There are fewer and fewer of these available to the public as crime and privacy concerned property owners close them off with digital locks. But we’ve been keeping an eye out open doors leading back to quiet stores or tiny restaurants. Some are grey, glum and utilitarian, but many show the French delight in making even a small space elegant and as lovely as possible.  Warren will share pictures (ed. note: whew I'm glad I had some pics that met the requirements) 
 
 

Francois Premier - The Rennaisance King 3-26-15

Yesterday we reaped benefit from our Amis du Louvre membership by going to a special exhibition at the Biblioteque Nationale - Francois Mitterand.  Dedicated to Francois Premier, France's equivalent, at least in time and learning, of Henry VIII of England and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.    Quite imposing in stature, nearly 6'6" he towered over most of his subjects. 







His symbol was the salamander, a flaming version appears on some medals and very frequently on buildings which were constructed under his dominion.

He was a man of great learning and accomplishment, he loved and respected Leonardo Di Vinci and brought him to live in France, he wrote music and poetry, he was a warrior (though with decidedly mixed results), he was a builder of some of the great chateaus of the Loire.

During his reign he reacquired many provinces that had fallen away from France, but he also lost his Duchy of Milan and all of his Italian holdings. This is a portrait of Francois painted by Titian







This is another portrait print with a decidedly modern look although done in the 16th Century







He also was instrumental in the founding of what would become the Biblioteque Nationale in that he built a library and required that one copy of every book printed in France be submitted as part of it's collection, very forward thinking for his day.

 I read a biography of Francois probably 20 years ago and came away very impressed. Over the years I've tried to see many of the buildings and sites connected with him so this was mandatory visit for me.  Although I have to confess that it was difficult because I'm almost illiterate in French and most of the exhibit focused on books and text (duh!  Library)

Visit to a part of Roman Paris 3-25-15

Today was a pretty day so we decided to take a trip to the Musee de Cluny,  across from the Sorbonne right on Boulevard St. Michel.  Two buses got us within 1 block and walking into the courtyard took us right into the middle ages.  It was the Paris abbey of the Cluniacs and the first hostel on the pilgrims road to Santiago de Compostela.  Interestingly it was a cardinals residence at some point if the carvings in the gable ends are to be believed.  But it was also a public bath in Roman times and as happened to so many buildings from that era it was appropriated by the Catholic church for their uses.  We have been to the museum before but for whatever reason we could only recall seeing the tapestries showing the virgins and the Unicorns, and the roman bath area which had many of the artifacts from Notre Dame that had been recently discovered in  their resting places after the ravages of the French Revolution when they destroyed so many of the religious objects. 



Be that as it may this time we really went through in some detail and found out what a bunch of bumblers we must have been last time.  There were really beautiful tapestries, household items, furniture, and sculpture that should have not been missed the first time but were ignored in our haste. 















These are the angels of the Shotglass















We spent about an hour in the museum and then left for lunch, which we took at a small cafeteria around the corner and turned out to be a very pleasant experience.  After lunch we went back in to the museum and completed our close inspection.

Interesting tidbit 3-25-15

Just a quick tidbit, 4 days ago Paris declared a pollution alert, what I thought was a cloudy mist was particulates (ugh!) but they also banned drivers with license plates ending in even numbers from driving within the Perpherique, had it continued odd numbers would have been banned the next day but thankfully it subsided.  As we rode the bus downtown there were several police checkpoints set up in various roundabouts where they were stopping and ticketing drivers with wrong numbered plates.   Very interesting to see so many Mercedes drivers being pulled over, I wonder if they base the ticket fine on income like they do for speeding tickets in some of the European countries.

How it all begins - another take on Paris 3-23-15

One of the things that Deb and I concluded, separately but with the same result is that Paris is far too big and complex to really be able to do a compendium of all it's charms, warts, and secrets.  Duh!   So we've devised a little plan to get more depth out of the firehose from which we will drink.  It does put some focus into our flaneuring, but it's still allows for lots of aimless wandering about.  I've mentioned the book "Angels of Paris" by Rosemary Flannery before, but we also have other sources as well.   They are "Quiet Corners of Paris" by Jean-Christophe Napias, three books by Thirza Vallois, titled, "Around and About Paris", and a series of cards called "City Walks, Paris" donated by Sunny and Mary Schreiner, and finally "One Thousand Buildings of Paris" by Kathy Borrus.  But I digress.

The notion is to pick an arrondisement and spend a week exploring it.  We identify things like museums, interesting sites, building (like La Ruche), and gardens then craft a day around one or two of them.  Of course we're like cats in that as soon as something interesting moves in the peripheral vision we're off to investigate, still we manage to meander through.


Very satisfying indeed

Our focus for the next few days will be the 6th Arr. because it has so many interesting things, both hidden and not, that are worth seeing.   We started out last week with part of a walk that passed through a 200+ year old series of courtyards called the 'Cour de Rohan'  at one end is the oldest coffee house in Paris, La Procoupe, where in 1776 Benjamin Franklin composed the agreement between the U.S. and France leading to the recognition of the U.S. as a soverign state.  It's also where many of the revolutionaries of the French Revolution used to meet to discuss how to change their society, i.e. remove the head of state.





  But today was the Musee Delacroix, the last home and studio of Eugene Delacroix.  It's only a couple blocks from St. Germain de Pre, but a world away in hustle and bustle.  It is on a serene and quiet place, sitting in one corner away from the busier street just outside of the square.  Delacroix was a 19th century romantic painter whose pieces contrast sharply from those of Gericault a classicist.  However this museum is very small and mostly focuses on the intimate portraits that Delacroix painted for family and friends.  It also has one of the hidden gardens in the rear of the building which is where Deb and I sat and had a bit of lunch.  As you'll notice I lost my head over having lunch in this little space.  I need to work on my photo composition I think.