Day 4 in Paris was a trip to the Musée d’Orsay and a lecture on Masculinity and Femininity in Sculpture. I didn’t really take many photographs to be honest, not sure why. I guess I just wasn’t feeling it.
I wandered there early in the morning, stopping to take a picture in a tat shop window:
I like the embroidery. Detailed but faded, on that stained background fabric. I might have to work this into my Minoan costume somehow.
Then while leisurely wandering to the gallery I noticed some of the most beautiful horses across the river. It seems to be the Republican Guard and I saw them on Wednesday morning too at the same time and the same place. I have no idea why they were moving fifty or sixty horses down the main streets of Paris each day, but it was certainly an incredible sight!
Thinking about it, they could have been riding to the Grand Palais, which was holding an equestrian event over the weekend. I can’t seem to find anything online that suggests this is a regular event.
And of course if you’re going to ride so many horses through the beautifully clean (they seem to wash them every night!) streets of Paris, then you need a dedicated clean up crew following…
Everywhere you go in Paris there’s music. Everywhere. The front of the Museum is no exception and this jazz group were entertaining the very large crowds that were already outside the museum by opening time.
I didn’t shoot much in the museum. It was a pretty jam packed few hours of lectures. We discussed how you read paintings and sculptures that feature men and women and the interpretations that you can make. It’s fascinating stuff and I feel like I have a much better grounding in how to read works of art now, which is good because interpreting societies views of gender in works of art is what I’m primarily interested in.
Did manage to capture this wonderful guy sketching in the gallery though. Totally made me smile!
The museum itself is a conversion from an old train terminal. It was constructed as a terminal and hotel (like St Pancras) to ship people in from the south of France for the grand exhibition in 1900. It is beautiful, and worth seeing in itself. I spend a fair bit of time thinking about buildings as works of art, this one is a particularly fine example.
The afternoon was spent on a slow wander back to the apartment, checking out various small commercial galleries on the way. Then Adam joined me in the evening and we wandered through the Marais district eating crepes and discussing the gorgeous buildings.
