Paris report March 08

This will be pretty short. Feel free to ignore (of course).

Arrived slightly delayed on Friday afternoon. We spent most of Friday shopping. The only “sightseeing” thing we did was check out the Cour de Rohan, a cute little back-court not far from St Michel. I bought loads of things for the new flat tho – my first ever original painting, various stuff for my bathroom, silly things, a handbag or two…..

Saturday we were meant to go see an exhib about Vlamink but there was a substantial queue so instead we prebooked tickets for the next day. Then we went to the Musée d’Orsay (where I’d never been before, despite living 5mins from it for a year) – we got tired before we’d seen all of it so we missed the probably most interesting part (post-impressionism), but the building itself was interesting enough (used to be a train station you know). Then we went to the Musée Maillol which happened to be mainly impressionism again. It was basically an exhib about the museum & its history, which was quite interesting in itself… it’s closely tied with the Galerie Dina Vierny and she seems to have been some sort of painter-groupie (ok Wiki says model *lol*) – a lot of the paintings / sculptures exposed were of her – always nudes. Oh yeah and Maillol himself almost exclusively painted and sculpted nudes. And then he died. *lol* So there you have it!!

Sunday we obviously went to see the Vlaminck exhib at the Sénat which was really really beautiful, if very crowded. We liked so much we walked around twice – despite crowds. I also bought a print of his potato reapers. Then we went to the Musée du quai Branly (anthropological) and I have to admit I found this a bit boring. Yeah ok so they make masks in Africa and in Australia and in South America.. ancestors play a big role in primitive cultures… there are initiation rituals…. bla bla bla bla. 😐 Humanity is so dreadfully predictable.

Finally we went to the Musée Marmottan – mainly a Monet museum (which – again – I had not known). We went for a specific temporary exhib, but were of course mostly blown away by the Monet paintings (some of which I’d seen before, most of which I hadn’t, and definitely never all in one place like this). This is also the permanent home of Impression Soleil Levant, the painting that gave Impressionism its name. I’d only seen this “live” once before. Monet is generally pretty damn impressive. I think (re)discovering this was probably my main “lesson” on this trip. (Vlaminck is also very very cool but as I had not really known him before that wasn’t as much of an epiphany)

Monday we went to see an exhib about Marie-Antoinette at the Grand Palais… again this was very crowded, and generally so-so. I didn’t really learn anything new about her (I did a presentation on her once so have read a few biographies, court docs etc) and what I did learn certainly didn’t make me like her more (which was – allegedly – the purpose of the exhib). I actually liked her before and now I don’t so much anymore. :))

Then we just generally walked around, did a tour of a few hidden passages and stuff, and walked through the Marais. Failed to see the Eglise St Eugène-Ste Cécile cuz it was closed (contrary to what my book said!!). Oh yeah and we caught the Métro to the Arts & Métiers station cuz it’s kinda fun (yay for flickr lol).

And then it was over and we went home, jaja.