The Road Goes Ever On

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Le Bistrot Du Peintre, 2019

Vicki and I are not much into the cafe scene: she doesn't drink (or smoke) and I don't smoke (anymore), and neither of us can just sit around and talk for very long. I think most of the people you see having animated conversations in Paris' innumerable cafes don't spend their time together 24/7 like we do. Besides, at least when it comes to politics and religion, we don't much disagree. Nonetheless, we have our favorite cafe in Paris, to which we have now been two or three times: Le Bistrot du Peintre. It's at the corner of Rue de Charonne and Avenue Ledru-Rollin, in the 11^th. The corner features four different cafes facing one another (not unusual for Paris), but all appear to have their faithful clientele. The Peintre seems to be doing better these days than in 2014, but then it appears most everything in the 11^th is doing better. Before visiting it in 2014, we must have walked by it dozens of times, eventually noticing the apparently original art nouveau windows, walls, woodwork, stained glass, lamps, paintings, furnishings, etc. Toward the end of our stay, we stopped in, and I did a blog post on it. This time, we were out wandering in the neighborhood, Vicki said maybe we should do the cafe thing, and I said how about Le Bistrot du Peintre, which was nearby. She had a raspberry lemonade, and I had a "perfect" Negroni—which was less than perfect but only half the price of the perfect one at Camparino's in Milan—and I got several more pix, including the upstairs dining area, which I'd not seen in 2014.

Street scene in the neighborhood

Upstairs dining

Stairs back down

Topless bar

Lots of road construction on Rue de Charonne the month we were there, but that's
Le Bistrot du Peintre

Jardin d'Acclimation, 2019

As mentioned earlier, the Foundation Louis Vuitton adjoins the Jardin d'Acclimation in the Bois de Boulogne. The Jardin is one of the larger public kiddie/amusement parks in Paris. We had taken P there in 2014, and her parents had taken her back this year. But she wanted to do it again, and we thus made it a fivesome, after three of us did the Louis Vuitton. Following a picnic lunch, Rachel, Rebecca and I wanted to visit BVH once more, and Vicki graciously volunteered to stay at the Jardin with P for another hour or so. Grandma earned many extra points from all concerned.

Feeding time at the petting zoo

Old-fangled ride-a-horsie

New-fangled Porsche ride

Grounds, aviary

Carousel

P is just now to the age and size where she can do the bigger, faster rides

Rachel, P, and Rebecca; thus

Racing to the next ride

She did the roller coaster so many times all the staff learned
her name

Bump-em cars

Monday, June 24, 2019

Louis Vuitton Foundation: The Courtauld Collection

The appearance of the Courtauld Collection at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris is another of those cases where, when a museum is undergoing serious renovation, it ships its collection to another museum, or other museums, for the duration. Always better to be seen than to be crated. We first saw the Girl With the Pearl (Ear Ring) in San Francisco one year, then saw it again at the Mauritzhuis in Rotterdam a year later. Anyhow, the Courtauld Collection, from London, is an important Impressionist collection. Mr. Courtauld was of French Huguenot extraction, made his fortune developing and selling rayon, the first synthetic textile, and spent it investing in art, art history, and art education. For the time, I imagine, he was a fairly bold investor. The exhibition was right at home in Paris.

Manet, Corner of a Cafe, 1879

A draft of Manet's Le Dejeuner...Courtauld collected not only final paintings
but also sketches, early versions, correspondence related to the work

Manet, A Bar At The Folies-Bergere, 1882

Monet, Antibes, 1888; it's changed a bit

Monet, The Gare Saint Lazare, 1877

A bit of the letters collection on display

Cezanne, Man with a Pipe, 1892

Cezanne, The Card Players, 1892; we'd see another of this at the d'Orsay in a few
days

Gauguin, Haystacks, 1889

Modigliani, Female Nude, 1916

Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Cypresses, 1889; that wheat field?

"I cut myself shaving"

Van Gogh, Peach Trees in Blossom, 1889

At the end of the exhibition, there was an entire room of Turner watercolors,
some earlier ones, but several of the later ones, obviously related to what would
become Impressionism; this, his Falls of the Rhine at Schafhausen, 1841

Dawn after the Wreck, 1841

Mt. Blanc, above Courmayeur, 1810; it's changed there too; on the whole, an
impressive and important collection, beautifully displayed and interpreted...

Louis Vuitton Foundation, The Building

We were in Paris in 2014 as the construction of the Louis Vuitton Foundation was in its closing weeks. Having seen Frank Gehry's spectacular Guggenheim Museum/Balboa edifice (twice; just search Gehry), we were sure to see the LVF, another of his works, on our next visit. Our next visit was in 2016 or so, and the exhibition within was unappealing. The next year, the treatment of the building, like a huge picnic table cloth, was similarly unappealing. This year, however, the temporary exhibition was of Impressionist paintings, and the building was itself unadorned, and so, along with Rachel and Rebecca and Penelope, we took Metro #1 to the Bois de Boulogne. P and her mom had already seen the LVF and were anxious to return to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, which adjoins the Foundation. Rachel had already seen the Courtauld Collection, twice, in London, but accompanied us mostly to see the LVF building and its permanent collection. The Impressionist exhibit was fine, even illuminating. The museum structure was, as I sometimes say, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.