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.
There’s two famous ladies in these photos. I’ll give you a hint – they ain’t alive anymore. The eagle-eyed will spot that both the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo are in the backgrounds of these photos – that is if you can see them through the cameras, phones and selfie sticks held aloft.
This is what the Mona Lisa room looked like from where she surveys the crowd:
I see just two people in that photograph actually looking at the painting in front of them. About US$780,000,000 worth of painting. By one of the greatest artists that has ever lived.
There’s a joke I’ve heard told a fair few times amongst art historians that you don’t visit the Mona Lisa to see the painting in person, you go to experience the crowds. And now you go to experience the phenomenon that is the selfie.
I mean I guess it’s not that odd, after all so many people will just be repeating the Beyonce/Kanye selfie that appeared last year some time.
And P. Diddy.
Nothing prepared me for the huge amounts of people in the crowds in front of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo that had their backs to the work of art. And not just because they were turning round to let someone else have a look, but because they were trying to take a fucking selfie.
I think it was Roland Barthes who wrote an essay when he was alive (1915-1980) that discussed how photography had become like big game hunting. Amateur photographers developed this drive to photograph everything that they saw in order to take it home and show people. This was evident in the Tate’s Salt and Silver exhibition which in some places read like an album of ‘interesting shit I’ve seen’. If you’ve ever sat though ‘Jim and Bob’s trip to Cambodia’ at your local camera club, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
The idea of the photograph as trophy seems to have got stronger rather than died out as a concept. Barthes would be turning in his grave. The idea that it’s the cultural norm to photograph a famous artwork and then Facebook it to prove you are there rather than actually look at the damn thing is verging on… well… I don’t have a word for it. I want to say disturbing – that’s the closest I can get.
It’s the fact that people have to prove they are there with a photograph that is the problem for me. I carry a camera around galleries and I photograph artworks. I do this for a few reasons.
Reference shots. I often take a snap of the art work and another of it’s label (just in case I take the wrong label, or something, so that I have both for the future). Being an art history student means that I’m always working on my huge inner database of artworks and this helps me look things up later and read about them.
Interesting observations. Sometimes there’s something interesting about a sculpture or painting that I don’t want to forget. A small detail in the corner of the painting, a dress, or often something on the side or back of a sculpture that isn’t usually photographed and easily available on the internet or from the galleries website.
Material for essays. If I’m working on something specific, then gallery website pictures don’t always work out for me. Sometimes there’s an experience you want to get from seeing it in person and you need to try and convey in a photograph. Sometimes you want to photograph something other than the artwork itself – like when I wandered round MoMA in New York taking pictures of the installations and galleries themselves because I’m writing a project on how you would install a video game exhibition.
The Louvre – View from inside.
Nice compositions. Fundamentally I’m still a photographer. Sometimes an artwork just makes a nice composition, and riffing off of another artist’s work can be enjoyable. Like this shot of The Louve taken through one of it’s own windows. Sometimes artworks can be seen or experienced in new ways because of the location that they are now in or the light on that particular day or the other works that they have been paired with.
You know why I don’t take photographs? To prove I was there. Or for detailed looking at later. If you want to look at something closer later most galleries provide really good digital copies of their works. Sometimes you download them from the site itself, sometimes you have to register and they send them to you (like the British Museum). This is one area where the galleries and museums have generally embraced digital technology very well and do provide great resources for people who need to look at something a bit closer and in more detail. Google are also really championing this cause with the Google Art Project. And Wikipedia can often be a good source of imagery too, because works get pulled from their gallery pages and into a central repository. Like this digital copy of the Mona Lisa for example. If you click on it you’ll get a glorious 2834 x 4289 version to look at in depth. You can’t photograph this work as well as this from the crowds surrounding the painting while the gallery is open. You can’t. They won’t let you because you’d need a tripod etc and that’s now allowed in the gallery. There’s no point.
So what is the point? Literally the only reason to photograph such a famous painting as the Mona Lisa is to say ‘I was there’. But I think that says a fair bit about your friends, if they don’t believe you were there without seeing a photograph of you with the painting.
I’m assured that the Mona Lisa has always been busy since it’s display in The Louvre, that it’s always had similar volumes of crowds. But ten or twenty years ago they were looking at the work, not trophy hunting to prove that they were there.
Today, all day, was spent in the Louvre. The morning was spent in a lecture looking at the sculpture of tombs and then the afternoon I dragged myself around some of the antiquities parts of the museum. I say dragged, I wasn’t feeling well. And because I went in as a group I didn’t have a ticket, which meant I couldn’t leave the museum to get food and then come back in again. Most irritating.
The Louvre – Tomb of Philippe ChabotThe Louvre – Tomb of Philippe ChabotThe Louvre – Cour MarlyThe Louvre – Cour MarlyThe Louvre – Cour Marly
Seeing the Assyrian Guardians in natural light was incredible. They are much more beautiful this way than how they are in the British Museum.
The Louvre – Assyrian SculptureThe Louvre – View from inside.
For anything popular – this is the view. I’m going to take Adam to see the Mona Lisa later in the week and I expect it to be worse.
This, by the way, was the Venus de Milo.
The Louvre – Venus de MiloThe Louvre – Venus de Milo
The ceilings in the Louvre are one of the best bits. They are spectacular and ornate, and reflect various parts of its history and French nationalism.
It’s quite remarkable to think that this was, at one point, basically someones house. This was one of the service corridors that would have led to the stables and other utility areas.
The Louvre – Inside one of the Etruscan and Roman Galleries
And of course if your service corridors are that grand, then they must lead to grand places. This was the indoor riding school – above the stables. Look at the beautiful ceiling. And the capitals of the columns were all carved with gorgeous animals – I’ve included some of my favourites here.
The Louvre – The original riding school from the palace.The Louvre – The original riding school from the palace.The Louvre – The original riding school from the palace.The Louvre – The original riding school from the palace.
Another famous work. Don’t bank on being able to see it from the front, without a crowd.
The Louvre – Cupid and PsycheThe Louvre – The first selfie?
It turned out to be a glorious day today which was a lovely contrast to the very grey day that we arrived on yesterday. It was even warm in the sun, although bitterly cold during the day.
I set out at 0900hrs for a leisurely wander to my first lecture of the day at the Pantheon.
Boulevard Henri IV
I really love the classical design elements on some of the Parisian townhouses. And the ironwork balconies too, of course.
Boulevard Henri IVBoulevard Henri IV – a garage with petrol pumps on one of the main roads through Paris. Just pull over, mid flow of traffic, and fill up!Pont de la Tournelle and Notre-Dame.Pont de la Tournelle – statue of Saint Geneviève (the Paton Saint of Paris).Notre-Dame again, showing the wall built to create the more solid island.Townhouse windows – Rue du Cardinal Lemoine.Window gardens – Rue du Cardinal Lemoine.Amazing part of the old Monastry that was knocked down to make way for the Pantheon.The back of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, showing the flying buttresses.Saint-Etienne-du-Mont – front elevation. Weird mix of classical and gothic architecture.
Saint-Etienne-du-Mont – even more weird combos of classical and gothic architecture. The turrets in particular are interesting – their use was restricted in Paris so they were a status symbol for those allowed to use them on their buildings.
We couldn’t get inside the church because it was Easter Sunday, but I wanted to show you guys what it looks like inside. The decoration is utterly spectacular.
The Pantheon with it’s dome covered in scaffolding while it undergoes restoration.Rue Valette, looking towards the Seine.The pediment of the Pantheon. A secular frieze celebrating the great men of the nation.Front elevation of the neo-classical Pantheon, behind is the more recent 19thC classical university library.Under the portico of the Pantheon. Notice the heavily ornate neoclassical decoration that goes against what we often think of as a ‘classical’ building. The scenes are secular, but were originally designed to be religious to celebrate the patron saint of Paris.The dome of the Pantheon is undergoing restoration right now, but instead there is a really cool photo project being exhibited. So the Pantheon has changed in usage so much over time, religious to secular, back again… back again… and now it’s showing contemporary art. Pretty cool.The frosted windows in the ceiling of the Pantheon. Originally they were clear, but when it was turned into a secular building the windows were frosted in order to make it feel more sombre. All of the windows in the walls were bricked up too.Showing the windows in context.The huge secular sculpture that now dominates the ‘altar’ end of the building. Above the painting at the back is a beautiful Christian painting of Christ.Love locks on the bridge to Notre-Dame.
I find the love locks kind of weird. Like, you’re trying to say that your love will last forever or something and I’m just not sure it works that way. Or that you should put yourself under pressure to try and make that happen. Relationships are better without pressure.
Also – stop breaking the fucking beautiful bridge.
More love locks – including a remarkably beefy one. That couple were optimistic!
The afternoon was given over to a lecture discovering the Hôtel’s in the Marais district. Not hotels as well know them, but private residences.
Hôtel de Sens – that hole above the door was for pouring boiling oil on unwanted visitors. It’s most likely not real though. They’re called apotropaic features – they’re designed to put people off visiting unless they have business.A 20th century Jewish Synagogue in Marais. Amazingly this is made out of cement cast to look like stone, and is by the designer of the Paris metro entrances.Double bass busker with trumpet player. \m/The cloisters in Place des Vosges.Hôtel de Sully – which I now need to write an essay about.
I’m half way through writing Paris: The Prequel but I’m determined to actually do a half decent job of blogging about the trip this time. Plus it makes it easier when I come to write articles and things, because I actually have a record that’s better than my notebook.
I’ve been quite nervous about traveling alone. I’ve never done it before you see, but it’s a fear that I did really need to overcome at some point. I’m more likely to start traveling alone for work over the next year or so, so being self sufficient in an alien country is a good thing.
Of course I wasn’t traveling completely alone, I was with my classmates from university. But I don’t know any of them that well really and I’m staying in an apartment on my own, away from the group. So that added some extra challenges.
I managed to get about 800 words of an essay written on the Eurostar, which was a promising start to the week. It’s not for this Paris module, it’s for my Culture, Gender and Sexuality module. I’m writing 2000 words discussing if feminist methodologies in art history are outdated, and arguing for a new queer methodology instead. It’s interesting – if you like that kind of thing.
Gare du Nord was an eye-opener. It seems on the Paris Metro you can just hold doors open for people, and in fact this is utterly normal. Just wedging stuff in the doors so that they can’t physically close, sometimes delaying the train by minutes. Once going the trains are pretty much like the London Underground. But with smaller turnstiles (clearly, France does not like fat people) and with marginally more odeur de piss. And beggars. Gypsy beggars. Everywhere.
Finding the apartment was largely uneventful. I’m the street behind Bastille which is a bit of a score to be honest. I mean, this is how close I am:
That’s the Paris Opera down in the bottom right hand corner. The apartment itself is functional. It’s a single room with a shower room basically. But it’s fine for me to stay in for a few days and then for Adam to join me later in the week. It was dead cheap, it worked out about £300 for a Saturday to Sunday stay (there’s a £300 a night hotel just around the corner…). The hotels in this area of the city were much more than £40 a night! The walls are a little thin, I can hear my neighbour when they run the water, but frankly I’m not complaining. I’d quite happily come here again – and if I can get a cheap Eurostar ticket later in the year I may well do so. The wifi is more than good enough for me to work from in the summer.
Anyway. I met up with the guys from uni and we were treated to a bit of a guided tour around the Seine. We checked out some old medieval streets, a wonderful backstreet full of kebab shops (Rue de la Huchette) and a vegetarian falafel stall, some bridges, some doorways, Notre Dame and the Louvre. Then five of us went and had crepes to celebrate being in France.
Now I’m in bed, exhausted. Having got up at 0530hrs and walked 18km.
Some pictures with brief notes – enjoy!
Quai du BourbonParis from Quai du BourbonNotre Dame – West FaceNotre Dame – West FaceHenri IVSeine – with Eiffel TowerLove Locks – Pont des ArtsLouvre – Pavillon de l’HorlogeLouvre – East Face
