You're Not in California Anymore, Dorothy

An Internet search would tell you that the average Paris temperature in January is 44F. That will change when they factor this year into the equation, I'm sure.  It's cold.

The last few days have been in the mid 20Fs and snow has been intermittent.  It's not lasting long on the ground, but one can easily tell which cars haven't been moved from their parking places in days; they're the ones with snow still piled on the roof and windshield.  The picture above is of part of the planted wall on the Musée Quai Branly, near the Eiffel Tower in the 7th arrondissement.  The plants are looking a bit peaked and the watering system isn't coping well with freezing temperatures, leaving icicles hanging from the ferns.

The other day we walked through a light snowfall to the Louvre, thinking it was exactly the right kind of day to spend in a museum; after all, we spent much of the fall putting off museum visits because the weather was too nice to be indoors.  Now the cozy inside was a pleasure that these fellows on the parapet couldn't enjoy.

We headed for the Italian painting section and came across this crowd.

See that little rectangle on the wall at the back?  In front of it is a cleared space into which visitors may not venture, so all these people are standing at least 20 feet from the Mona Lisa, a quite small painting that they can barely see.  Many of them are lifting cameras above their heads to take snapshots proving they've been there.  Meanwhile, about 20 yards away is a DaVinci painting of the Virgin and Saint Anne, whose face appears, at least to me, to be virtually identical with Mona Lisa's.  No one is looking at it.

Although this doesn't really fit in this post, I can't resist sharing it.  Several days ago we were on the Right Bank on our way to yet another museum when we passed this restaurant and I couldn't resist a picture (I don't resist much, do I?).

I imagine the story starts with a knock-off of something like the Hard Rock Café and the failure of that incarnation, followed by an attempt to capitalize on the Japanese tourist business without putting any more money into the decor.  Thus what we have left is this: American Dream Diner, Japanese Bistro, Manga Lounge.

And this is what they serve:

Paris en Grisaille

When I looked out of the window this morning fat white snowflakes were landing on the trees in the courtyard and the gardienne's Christmas lights were twinkling against a staircase covered in white.  While Gene went off to his French class, my sister Susanne, who's visiting for a couple of weeks, and and I decided to walk over to the Louvre, just across the river.

It was glorious. Quiet, white, clean, with little car traffic and few pedestrians, it could have been an Impressionist painting, a Sisley perhaps.  Virtually no color was visible, other than tones of gray, brown, black and the slate green of the river.

We crossed the pedestrian Pont des Arts, stopping every few feet to look around and take some pictures.  The few others out were doing the same, while this man, stopping on his way to a meeting perhaps, simply stood under his umbrella and stared at the newly fresh city.

The Louvre courtyard had a few narrow paths through the pristine snow.  The statues on the parapet had snowy epaulets and the Tuileries garden hedges were sprinkled as well.

The Louvre was unusually uncrowded, but after our visit it was pleasant to get back out to the transformed landscape.  The banks of the Seine remained untouched by cars or footprints.  Only the tour boat was moving on the river.

The buildings in the distance were hazy through the falling snow, and the sidewalks in front of the bouquinistes were deserted except for an occasional walker stepping carefully to avoid slushy patches.

It was a day many people preferred to spend at home.  The Velib bikes sat under their cover of snow.

The streetlights weren't lit but I wish they had been as the day progressed; a hint of light and warmth through the gray would have been welcome.

Up Against the Wall

Time has been flying by and sometimes it's hard to remember what yesterday held, let alone the day before.  But a couple of things stand out.  I saw, by accident, the Joseph Kosuth exhibition in the Louvre.  I say by accident because I was planning to see the James Ensor exhibit and totally got the location wrong.  I was meeting B., my charming French teacher and when I arrived I realized I didn't see any posters for the Ensor show.  The woman at the desk looked at me, recognizing the fool I was, and told me it was at the Musée d'Orsay.  Oops.

Meanwhile, B. had always had in mind the Kosuth exhibit and insisted it was at the Louvre, in the medieval basement level.  Still looking for the Ensor show, I accompanied her and found a wonderful surprise.  Kosuth, an installation artist I had heard of but knew nothing about, had installed neon phrases on the plain stone walls of the earliest part of the Louvre.  Simple but moving, these words talked about words, stones, walls, knowledge, understanding and belonging.  An incredibly fortuitous discovery.

We also managed to get out to the Musée Marmottan, a 30 minute bus ride across town to see the "Fauves and Expressionistes" exhibition, also stunning, with works by Braque, Vlaminck, Dufy, Van Dongen, Kandinsky, Beckmann, Jawlensky, Dix, Marc, Kirchner, and others I'd never heard of but whose work on the walls I loved, like Adolph Erbslöh.  The colors were unbelievable.  It's a show I'd see again and again.  Even with the 30 minute bus ride.

Night Time is the Right Time

This is what we saw at dusk last night when we got off the bus in Place de la Concorde on the way to Clotilde's booksigning and blog anniversary event at W. H. Smith, the English language bookstore on rue de Rivoli. The sky was startlingly beautiful, the clouds casting shadows, the colors morphing from pink to red to rose.  The monuments and streetlights and statues were all just outlines against the depth of color behind them.  We stood still and stared for several long seconds and I noticed others around me pulling out cameras in an attempt to catch the effect.

We were in fact early for the event and on our way to meet a friend at Angelina's, the long-established tea salon also on rue de Rivoli.  I say tea salon, and it is that, but what Angelina's is known for is the incredibly rich hot chocolate, chocolat à l'Africain they call it,  served from china pitchers, with a side of whipped cream, at the little round tables where generations of ladies have indulged themselves.  When we arrived however, they were turning everyone out and closing early, ostensibly for inventory (later on we passed by and there was a party going on).  We nipped in and got a hot chocolate to go before the doors were locked; no whipped cream, no little round table, no pitchers, but heavenly chocolate.  We shared one and couldn't finish it.

The book event was fun, Clotilde talking about her interesting career and her latest effort, the English version of a classic French cooking manual called "I Know How to Cook" by Ginette Mathiot ( the French is called "Je Sais Cuisiner") and recently published by Phaidon.  She updated the original 1932 book and its several later revisions, working with a team of translators.  There were amusing people to talk to and a great spread of food and wine, obviating the need for dinner (especially when you take into account the hot chocolate).

And then we walked home.  It's gorgeous here on a clear cold night.  They light the monuments and public buildings, the stone shines and the sky serves as backdrop.  The forecourt of the Louvre makes the most of the contrast between glass and stone.

 

 

While the Cour Carrée behind it looks like the set for your loveliest dreams.

Dreams you may continue to have as you walk along the quais and look into other lives through the lighted windows.

Cold Comfort

I did say, if you remember, that we'd get some culture as soon as the weather turned cold. Well, it has and we have.  Suddenly, yesterday, it was cold.  Not cool, not chilly, but cold, as in get out the down jackets and mufflers cold.  We'd been meaning to go to the Venetian art exhibit at the Louvre and this seemed a good time to do it.

The sky was a bright, bright blue as we entered the I.M Pei-designed pyramid and descended into the sea of other museum goers, and the colors stayed bright in the Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese exhibition, which tried to explain the rivalries and similarities among these three.  Frankly I want to see the paintings and I get bored by the cultured British voices telling me things I don't particularly want to know, so I passed on getting an audioguide and moved through the crowd relying on the signage, which was really quite good.  The paintings ranged from mythological allegory (lots of Danaë being showered with gold) to incisive portraits of the powerful of the time.  I came across one portrait of a father with his young son leaning against his leg that I recalled seeing at another exhibition at the Luxembourg Palace several years ago.  It was like meeting an old friend.

I find I love attending exhibitions in Paris.  There are always lots of women of a certain age explaining things to each other, pointing out the shading here, and how the foreshortening in this painting made it much more interesting than the one next to it, and of course you must see the painting by Pietro So and So in Hamburg to really understand...  I get such a kick out of eavesdropping I sometimes follow them around just to hear the end of the dicussion.

I had never given much thought to how much people who could no longer see art might miss it. There was one woman walking around with a man who was obviously visually impaired to some severe degree.  She read him the notes next to each painting and told him what she thought.  It was wonderful, touching and perfectly ordinary.

Another cold morning as we woke today, and we took off for Fontainebleau, where an exhibit of contemporary design was contrasted with the furniture and objets in the archive collection of the Chateau.  The modern pieces seemed to be just plopped down in some of the rooms of the Chateau and that meant you had to walk through the entire building to see them.  It wasn't very successful as an exhibition, but the Chateau is great.

Unlike Versailles, which seems like Disneyland for the Bourbons, Fontainebleau makes me believe Francois I and Henry IV and the others actually lived there, with all their complicated wives and mistresses.  It is, if you can say this about a giant castle, homier than Versailles.  And there are some lovely things in it; busts of the great kings, carvings of real and imaginary beings, monograms of the battling Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici, tapestries, paintings, porcelain.

This painted fabric feels like you could wrap yourself in it right now, doesn't it?  And stand looking through the waving glass of this window imagining the 16th century, the same time, I realize now, that those three painters in Venice were busily competing with each other.