6/10/17
Musee Day (Museum Day)
Reed and I took the # 69 bus (after purchasing
another pack of Metro tickets at Hotel Del Ville metro station) to the Musee
D’Orsay—located on the “other side” of the Seine. That makes it the Left Bank.
The plan was to meet Molly and Dana in Musee D’Orsay, constructed within an old
train station and home to an amazing collection of modern art.
The building and art within are truly a glorious
sight and at more manageable dimensions than the Louvre. The great
impressionists are there and Van Gogh and lots of pointillism. I respect the
pointillists, admired by Marshall McLuhan for their anticipation of the television picture-- and its pixels,
thousands of dots interpreted by our eyes into a coherent picture. The pointillist
paintings, including those by Camille Pissaro, Georges Seurat, and Vincent Van
Gogh, turn dots into images in the same way.
Nice
surprise, a Bugatti desk in the decorative arts exhibit, reminiscent of the
ones I saw in Washington D.C.. I like Bugatti’s eclectic, highly liberated
approach, a mixture of materials and styles—and, in the words of an art critic… “Bugatti's furniture
combines the picturesque asymmetry of Art Nouveau with the exoticism of Moorish
and Japanese influences…it is pure fantasy…”
The
Degas sculptures of dancer caught my eye, spare and lean. One corner of the
D’Orsay had a “Visionaries Exhibit,” including works by Kandinsky and Northern
Europeans and Canadians, with a focus on they mystic aspect of frozen
landscapes and isolation. Unfortunately, my blood sugar must have fallen off at
the point in the day. I started tiring at this point and couldn’t find my way
out of the labyrinthine exhibit. I started looking for an escape, desperate to
be relieved from these artists’ and their intense paintings. I turned the wrong
way several times and stared into Emergency exits and dark corridors. No Exit!
A real Sartre moment.
Reed
and I reconnoitered with the gals and discovered our biggest failure of the day—missing
out on Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. Dana and Molly made it a point to bring the
news of our mission failure. You know how that works… Oh, you missed that. Too bad! Just kidding, our friends did not rub
it in. Plus we had more museums to see this day and there was no time to cry
over spilled milk or missed paintings.
We
headed out to the city streets with the goal to find Molly a pharmacy and some
relief from her lower leg redness and to get lunch. Molly got some elastic
socks and the cheerful French pharmacist, attractive and with a therapeutic personality,
suggested aspirin as a helpful addition to the treatment. The socks and aspirin
seemed to have a beneficial effect by the next day. And we found a neighborhood
café brimming with youthful customers on a Saturday afternoon. The sidewalk
tables, a feature of so many Paris cafes, and inside tables closer to the
street were jammed with customers. We found a table in the back and a Caribbean
beauty of a waitperson took our order. Her father hailed from Atlanta and she
spoke flawless English. The food tasted fresh, also a great feature of Paris
dining, and had a wheat salad with amazingly substantial chunks of feta cheese.
The French have their values straight on food quality.
Next
stop was the Rodin museum with the Thinker statue (El Constipato as Reed refers to him). I’m not a huge fan of
sculpture of human body realism sculpture—but it doesn’t get better than Rodin.
The grounds of the mansion make an extraordinary French estate in the middle of
Paris. The tree-lined pathways, open green spaces and large building, where
several artist lived until Rodin’s made it his own, add an air of tranquility.
Final
museum stop of the day was Napoleon’s Tomb on the grounds of a French military
barrack and educational center. Not sure if this is a West Point-style facility
for French military officers but we spied a bunch of them—complete with the
unique hats—touring what can only be called the Napoleon of all Tombs, a tomb
big enough to hold half a platoon of soldiers within its solid walls. Not sure
why I got this Trojan Horse imagery in my mind of dozens of soldiers spilling
from the tomb, rifles drawn and bayonets extended. Maybe still suffering from a
bit of travel fatigue… You sensed the grandeur of the man in the tomb from this
massive piece of marble—the size of a ship—and wonder how we made his way from
death in exile and ignominy to such an exalted status for his resting place.
The tomb’s power, a cathedral-like surroundings, complete with a inspiring
altar and light shining through stained glass windows, cannot be denied. He was
Napoleon, after all.
We
were tired by the end of the day. Reed seemed ready to repeat a meal as
glorious as the Reed restaurant
experience of the day before. The rest of our group begged to stay in the
Marais district and to opt for something similar. We opted for “Petit Fer a
Cheval”, a neighboring restaurant to “Les Philosophes”, and possibly a cousin
in terms of ownership. The atmosphere appealed to me, similar to what my sense
a French family restaurant should be like—wood paneling and large posters on
the walls. I ordered a steak and, somewhat uncharacteristically, asked the
waiter to take it back to the kitchen. I just could not chew
the steak in its undercooked state. The waiter was fine and returned with extra
vegetables heaped on to my plate.
Reed,
Molly, Dana and I were all spent by the end of the three museum day. Turns out
the restaurant name Petit Fer a Cheval
means “little horseshoe.” And that’s something we could all use at the rate we’ve
been walking around the city.
Travel
day—6/10/17
No comments:
Post a Comment