I miss very much my favorite street corner.

Paris en mai.

One of my favorite little corners of Paris.

l'Académie française.

Pique-nique dans le parc des Buttes Chaumonts_19th arr_built on quarry that provided stone for Paris buildings, developed by Baron Haussmann.

Parc des Buttes-Chaumont.

Personal favorite. Sacre Coeur off in the distance.

Église Saint-Jean de Montmartre.

Montmartre.

Montmartre.

Montmartre.

Sacre Coeur.

View of Paris from Montmartre.

Few favorites from l’Orangerie.

Visited musée de l’Orangerie today! It was fabulous, both in terms of the artists displayed, and the size and feel of the museum. It was quite small, therefore actually manageable. Found myself introduced to artists I’d never previously encountered, and was pleasantly surprised to see paintings by familiar artists painted in unfamilar styles (think: Matisse). I don’t have pictures of it, but l’Orangerie also had two large rooms displaying Monet’s Waterlilies. There was also a fascinating little exhibition on Paul Klee. Here are a few of the favorites:

Marie Laurencin (1883-1956)_Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel (1923). That dive-bombing bird aimed at her neck strikes me as awfully threatening. But who knows.

l'Orangerie_Paul Cézanne_La Barque et Les Baigneuse (vers 1890). Lots of pyramids.

Cézanne_Fruits, serviette et boîte à lait (1880 - 1881). I really liked this one. It's funny because the wallpaper seems a bit like a grid which on the whole composition is laid out.

Amedeo Modigliani_Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota (1915).

Maurice Utrillo_La Mairie au drapeau (1924). Triangle/inverted triangle.

Chaïm Soutine_Arbre couché (1923-24). See the two tiny people dwarfed by the tree?

Henri Matisse_Femmes au canapé ou Le Divan (1921). Not one of my favorites, but works with the one that follows. Viewer pulled straight back to the open window and the sea beyond.

Henri Matisse_Le Boudoir (1921). This and the Marie Laurencin 'Portrait of Mlle Chanel' were probably my two favorites. Like previous, floor pattern plus angle of furniture draws one to window, but this time, window is closed and blocked by the plant. Found it rather amusing because it's like one's bounced back into the room. I feel like an intruder.

Visit by non-Curious miniMonkey.

Uninvited non-Curious miniMonkey visits Very Curious Georgy not Porgy.

On what I did today.

Here’s a post for those who think that I talk too much about what I’m thinking/reading instead of what I’m doing 🙂

I’m excited! Today, I went to two bookstores, one at the end of the street where I live, the other near school, and found four books.

Why so exciting? First of all, American bookstores don’t tend to carry many art/art history books. Second, I want to read these writings in the language in which they were written. Third, the lettres of Cézanne! I’m especially interested in his letters to Zola. During the school year, I skipped my Politics in China class to read Camille Pissarro’s letters to his son, Lucien. In them, he sometimes referred in passing to ‘a recent exhibit by Ms. Cassatt’ (that wasn’t terribly successful among critics), some purchase by Degas of Gauguin’s works, Gauguin’s mad dash to Tahiti, his own days painting, and always, he encouraged Lucien (who was in London) in his printmaking. I think that letters rank very highly among the things I enjoy reading.

1. Paul Klee- Théorie de l’art moderne

Paul Klee, I’ve never been a huge fan of his works, but he taught at the Bauhaus (with Wassily Kandinsky!) and was, therefore, rather articulate about modern art. I was sorely tempted to buy his Notebooks, which contain his lectures at the Bauhaus, but it was 30 euros. Here’s a painting by Klee, at MoMA:

Paul Klee, Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine), MoMA, 1922.

2. Gustave Flaubert- La Tentation de saint Antoine

Julian Barnes wrote a book called Flaubert’s Parrot, in which Barnes quotes Flaubert extensively, thus I’ve wanted to read something by Flaubert for some time now. I was tempted to buy a book of Barnes’s letters, but I’d rather find an English version. They had a larger collection of Julian Barnes than has had any US bookstore that I’ve frequented. Anyway, back to Flaubert. The other reason that I bought this book was because his subject is one that was popular among painters, including Hieronymous Bosch and (followers of?) Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the latter of which I saw at the National Gallery in DC. Here’s are two, first by Bosch, second by followers of Brueghel:

Hieronymous Bosch, la Tentation de saint Antoine.

Follower of Pieter Brueghel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, c. 1550/1575

3. Paul Cézanne- Correspondance

Correspondances of Cézanne. Enough.

4. Ambroise Vollard- En Écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir

Vollard was an art dealer who supported the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists while most critics were still shredding apart their works, figuratively. His book is a biography based on his encounters with the three painters. Here’s a portrait of Vollard by Cézanne that’s in Paris:

Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1899.

I’m not the biggest fan of Renoir, but Degas and Cézanne are probably my two favorites in that group. Very different. I haven’t visited the Musée d’Orsay because I want to begin to understand Cézanne before I go. I think I’m beginning to, I spent most of yesterday on him. I have d’Orsay scheduled for Wednesday.

And just because this makes me laugh:

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877, Met Museum

I’m discovering that Cézanne less-explicitly does this more often, with a plateful of apples, that’s mimicked by the arrangement of the tablecloth, or wallpaper design that mimics the lapels of a man’s suit. What’s this? According to the label for this painting at the Met, Degas put the water pitcher to explicitly show the similarity between it and the pose of the girl on the far right. He later wanted to erase the water pitcher from the painting, but the owner wouldn’t allow it.

Iceland: not my favorite country.

Europe flights as of yesterday, courtesy of Fallows blog. Even more bleak today.

Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland volcano wreaking havoc on Europe travel. Looks cool, though. First Iceland's banking system implodes, now it's taking revenge on the economies of all Europe.

From Reuters.fr:

PARIS (Reuters) – Le blocage du ciel français s’est étendu samedi avec la fermeture jusqu’à lundi matin de la plupart des aéroports en raison du nuage de cendres volcaniques venu d’Islande.

La situation est aggravée en France par le chassé-croisé des vacances de printemps, déjà compliqué par une grève qui s’éternise à la SNCF.

Basically three events converge to create chaos:

1. the Iceland volcano has caused the cancellation of all flights in and out of Paris CDG since Friday
2. SNCF, the train union, is on its 12th day of strike.
3. It’s spring vacation in France, everyone (was) planning to travel. But trains running between Paris and the south of France have been disrupted by the strike, and the Iceland volcano has stopped all flights until Monday morning, at least. Yesterday they said Saturday afternoon.

My third visit to Montparnasse…

…yielded this!

小叮当!

According to my professor, Serge Gainsbourg is affectionately known as “l’Homme A Tête De Chou” [Man with a Cabbage Head] because he’s so ugly. Nice, huh.

More pictures after jump.