Monday, May 18, 2009

Day 5 - The Louvre, Paris France



Last night we decided to sleep until we woke up. Guess what? We got an early start to our afternoon rather than to the morning (I'm sure that doesn't surprise Ron or Aaron). That's okay - we want to be able to be rested so we can enjoy this adventure. We took Bus #69 and had a little preview of some Parisienne neighborhoods on our way to the Louvre. We have managed to figure out the bus and the underground system pretty well. We prefer taking the bus over the underground because we can see so much on the way. We entered the grounds of the Louvre from the Southeast end. We were impressed with the architecture . . . of course. We passed through a courtyard and an archway to see the glass pyramid entrance. We started in the Denon wing and viewed the Italian gallery, finishing the stretch with the Spanish collections. Later we went to the Sully Wing and strolled through the 17-19th century French paintings. I (Kristy) had taken a little mini course of the Louvre on DVD before I came . .. so I had some specific paintings on my agenda. We spent most of our time focusing on them. Probably my favorite painting of the day was by Phillippe de Champaigne. It is a large double portrait of two Catholic sisters, one of whom is an Abess. It is called Ex Voto which means "record of the vow". The Abesses are dressed in white habits with red crosses and black headdresses. You could almost feel the weight of the habit they wore so well was it rendered in paint. According to the professor who took the course I took - the picture is a good example of "lifelong piety and the simple grandeur of spiritual life. The colors were bold and strong - yet the white of the habits created a peace and serenity to the picture that amazed me.


One of the paintings I was most excited to see was by Georges de La Tour. It is called "The Cheat With the Ace of Diamonds". I had loved learning about this work in my course and almost wanted to go directly to it .. . but I disciplined myself and arrived at it in order. The problem was . . . it wasn't there . . . in it's place was a puzzle of the painting . . . assembled in 2002 - as a project for an art student or something similar to that. There hung the puzzle in the Louvre. I'm sure the puzzle was probably hand painted and no ordinary puzzle . .. but it was distracting to see all those puzzles pieces. Anyway, I will have to go the the Kimball museum in Dallas, TX. They have de La Tour's "The Card Cheat with the Ace of Clubs" . . an autographed variant of the one I tried to see in the Louvre. It will be a good excuse to have a nice weekend away with Ron.



I asked Lauren if she just humored my enthusiasm for the Louvre today .. . but she said she enjoyed it too. We will go the Pompidou this week - which will hopefully please her taste for modern art.





Dinner was an adventure tonight. We ventured out of the touristy area to the Marais neighborhood for dinner. Here the menus do not have English "subtitles" and French is spoken predominantly. The restaurant we chose was Chez Janou Bistrot. The cuisine was of the provencal region . . . basically things are prepared with a lot of olive oil, herbs, garlic and tomatoes. We both ordered a salad. The best one had pamplemousse {grapefruit}, crawfish, and avocado (avocat) with field greens. We weren't totally sure what we were getting for our main course. . .but ended up with Trout and shrimp. There was rice and squash as accompaniments. Everything was saturated in olive oil . . but quite tasty. The fish which was described as a sea bass . . actually arrived appearing quite like a trout. It had the head on .. . not my favorite way to see my food ... but fear of all fears was that I would have to debone it. Well. . . my days at the cabin with my fisherman husband came in handy as I had seen him debone the fish after it was cooked before. Lauren and I were wishing we could call Ron to have him walk us through this process . . but I managed to pull the skeleton out mostly in tact .. leaving very few bones to choke on.


It is very humbling to be in a place where you cannot speak the language. We take for granted our ability to communicate and when it disappears .. . we are so dependent on the goodness of our French hosts to do more than their share of the communication. It must be very frustrating for them to spend so much time having to explain things to the tourists. I am so grateful when they are gracious and do not behave rudely as a response to our ignorance.

The treats in France are wonderful. We have established a pattern in the last two days. We indulge in a treat at lunch and dinner . . and split it between us. This way we can have two treats each day . .. but are really only having one. The pastries are all so beautiful. . . . . it can be hard to resist. The most delectible and rich looking item is so gentle and light . . . it leaves you with no regret.

This is a picture of the treat that we picked up at a fancy patisserie today after dinner.

2 comments:

  1. Oh those strawberries look yummy! No edible fresh berries for us in Lagos, so I always look for those when I get away. I enjoy de la Tour as well and went up to Dallas to the Kimball when they had a big exhibition of his work. His paintings are worth the trip. And I love the painting of the Abbesses as well! Oh, I could spend a week at the Louvre and be very happy! I'm so glad you could see it with your daughter. Most of the men in my life don't have the patience for long stretches in art museums.

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  2. Come on out to the Kimbell. It is a great museum but not in Dallas. You will have to come to Panther City (Fort Worth). The Modern is next door and also worth a visit. Thanks for the great post. I enjoyed reading your writing.

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