Le marché de Belleville

Our two days at the Louvre were pretty intense, so we decided to have a more relaxing day Tuesday, with just a visit to a market. A couple weeks ago one of our walks had taken us through Belleville and the aftermath of its Saturday market. The area is as ethnically diverse as any place in Paris, and we figured this would make for an especially interesting market. The Belleville market is indeed interesting, and very large and crowded. The cheap stuff is very cheap, the produce not as fresh as other markets we have seen, nor the variety as interesting. The aroma of the fish markets suggested maybe these fish had been to other markets before Belleville. The narrow aisle, the mass of humanity, etc., made for some interesting jostling and groping, but only three times was I run over by a shopping cart (one even produced a muted "desole"). Well, anyhow, this is real Paris, not tourist Paris, and we were glad to have had, and ended, the experience.

Google Earth view; the market runs the length of the diagonal, center left; it's
big, really big

This is the only photo I got inside the market

Happily, very happily, at the end of the market, there was a superb Asian grocery,
and we decided on Beijing duck for the next couple nights' dinners

Poulet noire (in case you've never seen such a thing; we hadn't)

Durian popsicles; OMG; in Paris!

This is what the back-side of a market looks like

Ditto

The only thing we bought at the market were these salicornes, something I'd
not seen since the south of England, last summer

Peking duck in Paris

Vicki made a brief video of the market, which you can view at http://youtu.be/a4hUAUCFbDI. Her second attempt was blocked by a fellow market-goer, who explained, we think, that this was a non-non. Lots of people here who maybe don't have papers, I surmise. Anyhow, this was another of those one-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Plus out-takes du musée du Louvre

Prolonged museum visits require preparation, both intellectual and aesthetic, sturdy and comfortable shoes, good health generally, adequate hydration and caffeination, regular rest and restoration (food) breaks, and an ample sense of humor. Warning: this post may contain material offensive to your religious/sexual/political/other orientation, if any.

Have you ever wondered what putti wear in funeral processions? Of course you
have...and here is the answer

Far, far from the madding tour bus crowds, a fun display on the Mona Lisa
(who'd have thought the Louvre had a sense of humor?)

"Don't make my butt too big!"

"Don't make my butt too big"

"Don't make my butt too big"

"And don't make my dick too small!"

We've seen all kinds of Janus figures from the classical world, but this is the first
multi-racial one...Hellenistic...

Hula-hooping was a major Olympic event

More male humor

Jesus calls in an air strike

Paul preaching at Ephesus...and burning books

"Oh, no!"

A popular theme in 18th century French art

Out-takes du musée du Louvre

Prolonged museum visits require preparation, both intellectual and aesthetic, sturdy and comfortable shoes, good health generally, adequate hydration and caffeination, regular rest and restoration (food) breaks, and an ample sense of humor. Warning: this post may contain material offensive to your religious/sexual/political/other orientation, if any.

"Oh, no, not another set of museum out-takes!"

Jesus strafing St. Francis

Unidentified saint puts on after-burners while freeing
prisoners from a jail

Always playing second lute while the other putti is a model
at the bosom of Mary...

One of Leonardo's weirder compositions; Mother of God
sitting on the lap of the Mother of the Mother of God

Same model who posed for the Giaconda; am I wrong?

Speaking of which; half the crowd is focused on the Mona

The other half is focused on the Lisa (it cracks me up that Proust's housekeeper
thought that Napoleon and Bonaparte were two different (but very similar)
persons)

"Phew...your turn!"

Baby Jesus' first Easter (important foreshadowing...)

Looking down at the wedding at Cana

Dante and Vergil doing their voyeur thing

"Next time we cross the Alps, I wear pants!"

David's colossal Coronation of the Empress Josephine

Key to the important players on the Coronation of Empress Josephine

Paris et le Musée du Louvre

While there is more to look at in the Louvre than almost any other building, scenes outside occasionally appear and capture your attention...

Deux jours au musée du Louvre

Our Paris cards were good for Sunday and Monday, and we decided to spend both days at the Louvre. I think we have now graduated to the class of hard-core museum-goers: less than a day would have seemed like torture, and less than two certainly painful. We had fortified ourselves the past couple weeks watching art history videos again, especially Richard Brettell's Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre, from The Great Courses. And, of course, we--especially Vicki--have been there before. Lots of times. So, accordingly, this will not be my first post on the Louvre. Others will have appeared in 2009 and 2012, some before that. For now, I'll try to stick to just a few personal favorites and a whole bunch of curiosities and out-takes, leaving the rest to Google Art.

Venus was still there but Sam
O'Thrace was away for renovation
or whatever; Delacroix's Liberty 
was back from Lens, as was the
marble Hermaphrodite...

David's sketch of General Bonaparte, 1796

Assassination of Marat: love these historical works that
themselves become historic

Millett; easy to see why Van Gogh (and others...Proust) liked his work

Ingres' study of hands for...

His Apotheosis of Homer, with its embedded portrait of Poussin; in a museum
of this size, you come to look for connections among the works, the artists, etc.,
sometimes leading you pretty far off the beaten track...

For example...on the ceiling somewhere, I noticed this interesting depiction
of a pope, an architect, an artist...Vicki immediately recognized Julius II,
which led us to see Bramante, Rafael, and, oh yes, Michaelangelo brooding
over there on the right; the plan for the church is not quite right, since
Bramante's St. Peter's was to be a Greek cross, not the cruciform depicted...
but I digress

I spent quite a bit of time, as before, sitting in front of
Watteau's enigmatic Pierrot; all the more enigmatic
considering what he mostly painted--happy elites in
happy times for elites, before the Deluge--somehow this
clown speaks to me; we are all clowns, and it's not always
fun; ecce homo

One of my other favorite paintings, Giorgione's Fete Champetre, also pretty
enigmatic, and also nested deeply in the history of art and the history of this
museum; they say Manet walked by the Fete Champetre daily...and came up
with Le déjeuner sur l'herbe

In the Claude Lorraine room; thinking of Turner...

Alas, I took half a dozen pix before I saw the "no fotos!" sign;
sorry; but, damn, he was good (and one of many artists copying
these two days)

Francois Premier (as John the Baptist), founder of the
Louvre and its first great collector (he collected Leonardo,
and therefore Leonardo's unsold works too)

Hubert Robert's 1796 depiction of the grand gallery; the Louvre and its
collections were now public property...

Not pictured department: apart from this Medieval Islamic glass, 300,000 other
artifacts; we spent a good deal of time looking at the antiquities, the objects of
art (household goods, as I call them), sculpture, etc.; as always, we were
transfixed by Van Eyck's Virgin and Chancellor Rolin and bowed before Durer's
first self-portrait...