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| Metro ad |
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| One view of the Petit Palais |
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| Delacroix well represented; here his Les Convulsionnaires de Tanger, done in 1838, concerning a procession he witnessed while on a diplomatic mission to Tangiers |
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| The great French author of the period...one of the authors of both the French and English infatuation and idealization of the Medieval |
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| As I said, I approached this period and place from music, and Berlioz was certainly one of the earlier French Romantics |
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| Origin of the term "long hair" |
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| Raising of the Obelisk on the Place de la Concorde in the 1830s; the Place de la Concorde was not a Happy Place in Paris or French history, unless you were a fan of regicide, the Terror, etc., and during the Restoration it was decided, eventually by Louis Phillipe, to put the obelisk there; it was a gift from Egypt and had been transported, with great fanfare, all the way from Luxor |
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| Back to music: my favorite high Romantic opera, Der Freischutz, by Weber |
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| In Paris, Meyerbeer ruled the opera world and was Wagner's chief antagonist; also perhaps the first object of his anti-Semitism |
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| Jean Pezous, La Descente de la Cortille, depicting part of a parade associated with the Paris Carnival |
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| The model of Pleyel piano that Chopin preferred |
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| Poet of the Piano |
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| Lizst was there too; I wonder if they ever did a "dueling pianos" thing |
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| As was George Sand, aka Aurore Dupin-Dudevant, the most popular and prolific writer of the age; also a political activist, socialist; adopted the male nom de plume, dressed as a male, smoked in public, and whose list of famous paramours, including Chopin, is beyond the scope of this blog; deserves way more attention as a writer and feminist than she has gotten |
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| Musical bits and pieces |
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| Many, many famous operas of Romantic Paris |
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| Rachel, the great Thespian of the age |
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| When they weren't writing, singing, or acting, they were manning the barricades... 1815 marked the Allied occupation of Paris; 1830, the Young Europe revolution that influenced Wagner, and of course, 1848; Wagner was long gone from Paris by then, but his involvement in the revolutionary events of that time brought a price on his head and exile from Germany that lasted a decade; the epicenter of it all was Paris, and much larger events unfolded... |
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| Victor Schnetz, Combat devant l'Hotel de Ville, le 28 juilette, 1830 |
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| After Romantique Paris, we also took in an exhibition of German Romantic works, mostly drawings, from Weimar |
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| Paysage Italien, by non-Renaissance Renaissance man Johann Wolfgang von Goethe himself; Romanticism certainly antedated 1815-1848, and Goethe had as much to do with it as anyone |
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| In the permanent collection of the Petit Palais, a Steen |
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| Rembrandt self-portrait #1,632 |
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| Show-stopper for me: Guimard's Paris dining room |
