The Road Goes Ever On

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Petit Palais

We might have skipped the Petit Palais this year, but there was a special exhibition of pre-Raphaelite paintings we wanted to see. The Petit Palais is one of Paris' 14 city museums, and anywhere else would be a city or a nation's major art museum attraction. Thirteen thousand paintings, sculptures, other objects of history and art. For a more thorough introduction, look here, and here and also here. Below I'll focus just on a few things that were new to us. And the pre-Raphaelites.

Petit Palais, built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, from the top of the
Grand Palais, across Winston Churchill Avenue

And let me take this opportunity to say I think the
French monument to Churchill is vastly superior to
the one in Parliament Square

Among the many halls of sculpture, furnishings, historic items...

And paintings

Another large, contemporary art exhibition, configurations of
glass beads and bricks...

Not what we came to see

Also not what we came to see, but well worth a look: a whole
hall given to photographs and paintings of the historic Mairies
(city halls) of Paris' 20 districts; here, ours, the 2nd; got to love
the self-regarding city

In a collection of Christian icons from the Mediterranean and
Black Sea areas

Martyrs

Devotional icons with metal covers to protect
the paint

A type of classical drinking vessel we'd not seen
before

In a hall of classical artifacts

The pre-Raphaelites are from a private collection,
on a five year loan, are shown along with the permanent
collections, which include Steens, a Breughel/Jr., a
Rembrandt selfie, Pedro/Paulo, a Claude, an Ingres,
not to mention all the 19th century Parisian stuff; above,
anyhow, is Waterhouse's Lamia, 1909

Edward Byrne-Jones, King Copethua and the Beggar
Maid

Frederic Leighton, Whispers, 1881

Waterhouse, The Rescue

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Betrothal Ring

William Holman Hunt, Il Dolce Far Niente

Rossetti, A Christmas Carol, 1867

So one of our favorites at the Petit Palais is Hector
Guimard's dining room, posted in one of the items
noted above; outside it is a setting of jewelry from,
no less, Fouquet's jewelry store, which we just saw
at the Carnavalet

Unidentified pre-Raphaelite in the permanent collection

Crossing the Pont Alexandre, looking back at the Grand Palais
(extensive renovation going on)

And now walking in the 7th

To a bonus destination for the day, another of Paris' more famous
market streets

Saturday, October 16, 2021

More Louvre Loonies

Real titles and painters' names given on request...

Divine city planning

"These toes are made for walkin', and that's just
what they'll do, one of these days these toes are
gonna' walk all over you..."

And now for something completely different...a woman with
three buttocks

"We're all alone; no chaperone can get our number; the world's
in slumber: let's misbehave!"

"Gotcha!"

"You put your right foot in, you take your right
foot out...and that's what it's all about"

Black Friday specials, 1819

Ingres' study for the poet's toes in The Deificaton of Homer;
seriously; probably worth more than any of us...

Monsieur Ed

Le Chat Mort; the French expression for "still life" is nature

morte; what is the symbol for curiosity? I wonder; is this

painting really finished?

Monet's Monkey, or, The Birth of Impressionism

Louvre, 3

Fortified by five lectures covering French painting from the Le Nains, through LeSeur, Latour, LeBrun, Boucher, Chardin, Vernet, Watteau, Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun, and on to David, Ingres, Delacroix, and Millet...we tackled the second floor of the Sully and on into Richelieu wing. Mostly 17th and 18th century French painting, just getting into the 19th, not what everyone who comes to the Louvre comes to see. But it's stuff we've grown into. The two dozen pix below represent just specimens of given painters or schools.

There were rather quite a few Le Seurs--a whole room maybe--
pretty much all with the same frame (we'd just passed through
the frame display rooms)

Georges LaTour, Saint Joseph the Carpenter,
1652

Francois Boucher, Diana Leaving Her Bath, 1742;

Jean-Simeon Chardin, The Young Draftrsman,
1732; sorry, we got a bit out of order here...

George LaTour, The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, 1652;
muy famoso

Louis Le Nain, The Peasants' Meal, 1632; things got even worse
before they got better

In London, we "discovered" Joseph Vernet, an 18th century
landscape artist somewhat midway between Claude and Turner;
here his View of Naples with Vesuvius, 1742

And his Night: A Seaport in Moonlight, 1771, commissioned
by Madame Du Barry, FYI

Hyacinth Ridaud, Portrait of Madame Rigaud in two Different
Poses, 1695; two-fer

I've included Watteau's Pierrot many times before; one of my
favorites; here is his equally famous Pilgrimage to the Isle of
Cythera; known, as is Pierrot, for its note of melancholy

Fragonard's dramatic Inspiration, 1769

And his Fantasy, also 1769

Hubert Robert specialized in paintings of Roman ruins, including
this Pont du Gard, 1787, one of a series of Franco/Roman "monuments",
done for Fontainbleau...Arles, Nimes, and Orange...all in the same room
in the Louvre now

If nothing else, Robert lived in interesting times: he rose to a
high position both in the art world and with Louis XVI; then
suffered through the Revolution, imprisoned ten months, missed
his appointment with Monsieur Guillotin only through an
error (there were two Hubert Roberts, apparently), was released
after Robespierre's death, then became one of the committee of
five that converted the Louvre to the national museum it is today;
here, one of his paintings of the grand gallery