The Paris Posts

Due to length of content, I am putting all my posts from my Fund for Teachers Paris trip under one page…The Paris Posts!  Enjoy!

~Mrs. A

Bonjour From Paris!

Hello to all my students out there!  Mrs. A is underway with her Fund for Teachers grant in Paris, France!  Mr. Anders is with me as well.  Today is Sunday, June 29 and we’ve been so busy running around that I’m going to have to catch you all up in segments.  This is post one.

We arrived here Monday morning.  Once we checked into our hotel, Mr. Anders and I wasted no time in exploring the city.  We left the hotel at 1:00 pm (local time) and returned back to our hotel at 7:00 pm.  We walked the entire inner city from the Opera Garnier, to the Place de la Concorde, to theLouvre to Notre Dame Cathedral.   We got our bearings and a feel for the layout of things (it is a much farther walk from our hotel to the inner city than we thought!).

Tuesday we set out once again heading towards the Opera…our final destination: the Eiffel Tower!  We avoided the museums on Tuesday because many of the major ones are closed.  We took a leisurely stroll down the Champs Elysees, which is a very famous boulevard in Paris.  It’s a bit like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (no, not our school, Beverly Hills, California) in that there are a lot of really fancy, famous shops like Chanel, Cartier and Gucci.  At the end of our walk we found the Arc de Triomphe which is a monument that was built to commemorate victories of the Emperor Napoleon and is the starting point for many famous parades and city festivals.

We then found our way to the Eiffel Tower.  Gustave Eiffel designed and built the tower for the Universal Exhibition of 1889 and it was only meant to be a temporary setup.  But it has lasted and now is a hallmark of the Parisian landscape.  It was the first building I recognized when we flew into Paris on the plane!  I was sooo excited!!  Mr. Anders and I climbed over 600 steps to get to the second level.  We stopped there, but what a view! Another thing that impressed me about the Eiffel Tower was the pattern formed by the pig-iron girders which are not only beautiful but functional; they help stabilize the tower in high winds.  Don’t worry, I took lots of pictures so maybe next year’s painting classes will get a chance to re-create it!

This was the end of our second day.  Once our visit to the Eiffel Tower was complete, we walked backed to our hotel and crashed, exhausted but excited.  On the docket for day three…the Louvre and a bicycle tour!  Watch out Paris, we’re getting on bikes!

Au revoir,

~Mrs. A

Paris: Day 3

Bonjour once more!

We’re actually on day 7 (eek!), but not to worry, I’ve been taking notes and sketches in my journal and will not have any trouble recalling the details for you when I post more tomorrow.  My computer is still on Houston time (it’s 3:27 pm where you are) so I’ve got my watch on for local time (10:27 pm here!)  Funny thing is that Paris uses a 24 hour clock, or military time so if you see a sign for something with a time on it, it will say 14 hrs, which means 2:00 pm…hard for me to get used to!

So day three started out with a journey to Louvre.  We got up fairly early (early for the summer, that is!) and walked down to the Louvre.  I have to say, if you are planning on going to Paris, invest in a museum pass, it gives you access to over 80 museums for a set fee (you can enter as many times as you like) and you can skip the lines at a lot of places.  Even though the Louvre had only just opened, there was already a long line near the main entrance at the glass pyramid, but we were able to go in a separate entrance and skip all that hassle!

The glass pyramid is an interesting story, and worth taking note of.  It was designed by I.M. Pei and became the front entry to the Louvre in 1989.  Many objected to this ultra-modern looking addition to the centuries-old complex of buildings which started out as a fortress in 1190.  Personally, I found the glass pyramid to be a wonderful addition.  Although we don’t have a lot of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings in Houston, but Paris is littered with them  The fusion of the new with the old was very refreshing in my opinion…a modern update to show that the Louvre contains not only treasures from the past (and let’s not forget that even though it is made of glass, the concept of the pyramid was used by the ancient civilizations long ago) but contemporary caches as well.  

Now, you’ve heard me mention Napoleon, who was a brilliant military strategist and the Emperor of France.  Well, my thought upon entering the Louvre and getting a map was that we were going to need someone of his skill to negotiate this place…it is huge!!!  The Louvre is three wings and four floors of art…over 350,000 pieces, to be more exact.  This was not a job for one day and we had our bike tour scheduled for later in the day.  My first request: Mona Lisa!  Not only is Mona a main feature on our mural, but arguably the single most FAMOUS piece of art in history!  This was reinforced by the posted signs all over the Louvre directing us to this one image.  So we trotted up the stairs, past the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a celebrity in and of itself, beyond the Italian masters, around a corner and into a room where the crowds gathered.

As we were racing through in our eagerness to get to the Mona Lisa I did take note that the building itself is a work of art.  The walls, the ceilings, the floors, even, are decorated to the hilt in guilted, ornate style.  The room in which the Mona Lisa is housed is actually much more simple.  Another thing I noticed in our haste was that many of the canvases were enormous!  Next time you complain about having to do an 18 by 24 inch piece of art for contest, just consider these panels which were over 20 feet tall, some of them!

Finally, there we were…face to face with La Gioconda herself.  I was prepared for the fact that she is small (in truth, larger than I was expecting, but most people envision that she should be much, much larger than she actually is, 30×21 inches).  There was a much larger crowd here than any of the other paintings.  Two guards stood by her on either side and there was a wooden rail about ten feet in front of her as well as a roped off section about five feet further back (young children are allowed to go up to the wooden rail, everyone else has to stay behind the roped off section).  Between her and us is a thick plate of bullet-proof glass…put there after vandals attacked her, one with acid, a second with a rock.  The glass case is also climate and humidity controlled to keep the painting from aging.

I found the Mona Lisa enchanting.  The Louvre contains so much and yet, there is something so mysterious and fundamental about this one painting.  It isn’t that she has bold, bright colors…in fact all the da Vinci paintings were very dark in comparison to the brighter, more vivid palettes around them.  I remembered our discussions while painting Mona on the mural and noticed particularly that her skin tones are very warm and yellow-toned.  The background, although we did not paint it, interested me because I had seen several reproductions that ranged anywhere from blue to green in in the sky.  The actual sky is lighter than I thought, but tends to a greenish-gray tone.  It isn’t that she is the largest canvas, not by far, and it isn’t that the composition is vastly complex with lots of things going on, in fact it is relatively straightforward and simple.  Perhaps, what is most engaging about Mona Lisa is not what she is…but what she is not.  Like so many of us, she has secrets and stories to tell (why did Leonardo carry her around with him when he traveled, what is the cause behind her enigmatic smile, how did da Vinci achieve such elusive shading techniques without the apparent use of brushstrokes, and why is she so popular?)

The latter is a question I did set out to ascertain: why do so many people flock to the Mona Lisa?  What is it about her that makes people line up and take pictures?  Why is her face a guarantee in every souvenir stand?  People I surveyed while standing in the crowd for the most part weren’t sure either.  ”I’m not sure why,” one woman commented.  ”Because you see it everywhere,” a young boy from Indiana said.  ”The beauty of her smile makes her so famous…and so mysterious,” a woman from England offered.  The amusing thing to me is that these are all very similar statements to those made by my students when I assigned this same question as an art journal entry.  So in the end the best part about Mona Lisa may simply be that we can’t riddle it out…it simply is!

In addition to Mrs. Gioconda, we saw ancient Greek and Etruscan art along with Roman red and black figure pottery.  I did some drawing of the different styles of jars, bowls and amphoras.  I love all the different shapes, maybe we can do a clay project with this next year.  By then it was time to head to our meeting place for our bike tour…we had only seen about a floor of the museum so we vowed to come back the next day.

We showed up about ten minutes early for our bike tour but never found our group!  This is a mystery which is, as of yet, still unsolved.  Apparently the tour company called our hotel looking for us, but we had already moved on and had no way to get in touch with them.  We were in the spot indicated to us by the map provided by the company, but there was no one there.  After waiting about another 10 minutes at the location, we decided to head back towards the Louvre for a bit of rest on the lawn of the sculpture garden where I sat and drew in my sketchbook while Mr. Anders read.

After about an hour there we decided to go ahead and tack the Musee de l’Orangerie.  I must say, after the monumental task of deciphering the Louvre, this was a welcome change of pace!  The main feature of the l’Orangerie are the ‘Waterlily’ series painted by Claude Monet.  Also housed here are works by his contemporaries including Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne and Picasso.  There are 8 huge canvases of ‘Waterlilies’, I hadn’t realized how many variations he painted.  They still command a sense of awe and reverence…it was a hushed crowed that viewed these transportive works.  I zoomed in to get some details on Monet’s brushstrokes as well.  I wish Elizabeth had been there to see them!

Now, I confess after all of this excitement, both Mr. Anders and I were ready for bed!  We trudged back to our hotel and hit the sack.  Day 4, we plan to conquer the Louvre.  I feel better knowing we have only ONE thing on our agenda…we will see how we hold up!  Michelle, my French is still so limited…want to join us so you can help out?

Bonne nuit,

Mrs. A

Paris Day 4: Making New Friends at the Louvre (or How I Got My Red Beret!)

Day 4 of our adventure was devoted solely to the Louvre.  We got up leisurely and strolled down.  We decided to plan our route strategically…Mr. Anders had a good idea in starting at the top…that way when we got tired we’d be going downstairs, not up…ah ha!  So up we went.  They were having an exhibition on a contemporary artist, Jan Fabre.  Unfortunately a big section of it was closed, but from what we did see, Fabre is heavily influenced by early Flemish Christian painters whose scenes of Christ of the Cross gave his works a somewhat morose feeling.  I learned that the Flemish painters would often mix actual blood and bone with their pigments, which characterized the hues on their palettes.  Wow!!  So Fabre had a lot of works to do with the human body (performance art, as he calls it) and the exhibit was set up so you could see his influences in the old masters.  It was pretty interesting.  I’d love to do a project where my students have to re-imagine an iconic masterwork. (kind of like our Mona Lisa parody project)

We then explored French paintings from the 14th-19th centuries including this picture of the Cardinal Richelieu (for whom a wing of the Louvre is named) by Phillippe de Champaigne in 1637.  See how the big the canvas is…this was not the biggest one by far!  Richelieu is a national icon in Paris and if you’ve ever seen a movie version of “The Three Musketeers” (or read the book, which I myself have never been able to get through!) then you’ve seen him portrayed.  He was a powerful statesman and clergyman…Pope Urban VIII said of him: “If there is a God, Richelieu will have much to answer for. If there is not, he has done very well.”  Wow!!  Here, he generously gives me my red beret, a souvenir from Paris!

The next floor, which is actually deemed the 1st floor (the lower ones go by Ground Floor and Lower Ground Floor) houses the Mona Lisa, which I had to see again, the Italian paintings, some Spanish and English as well as the Napoleonic apartments with objects such as furniture.  This is where Emperor Napoleon’s nephew, Napoleon III lived.  Mr. Anders took lots of videos, I will work on getting those uploaded so you can see them.  We also viewed ancient Egyptian statuary.  

It started to get late and you could see that sections of the Louvre were being shut down so we started to make our way towards an exit, passing along the way Greek statuary.  I wanted to make sure we saw the famed Venus de Milo, a statue considered to to be the pinnacle of perfection for female beauty and she really is, in every way, shape and form.  She was discovered on the Greek Island of Milos in 1820.  Her arms had already been broken off and she herself was in two pieces, severed at the torso.  There was quite a bit of confusion and controversy surrounding who the original sculptor was.  The riddle was later solved and it was determined that Alexandros, son of Menides, citizen of Antioch on the Meander made the statue.  Although today there is no trace of it, originally she would have been painted and decorated with jewels to make her more lifelike, most likely having been placed in a niche in a gymnasium.  Although she is known as Venus, her Greek name is Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.  Emeka, you would appreciate all these sculptures owing to your love of mythology!  You probably know more about them than I do!

It really is amazing to me how these artists were able to make such richly detailed work, centuries ago.  Here Mr. Anders strikes a pose amongst some columns that are actually female figures.

So, once again we did not see everything in the Louvre!  I have been revising my schedule each day so I will have to make it back to the Louvre one more day before we leave…there is just os much, not to mention the fact that I haven’t purchased any classroom materials from here as of yet.  I think, on reflection, the Mona Lisa has to be the highlight.  It’s interesting to me how much like friends some of these masterworks seem.  I have studied so many of them and stared at pictures of them for so long I feel like I have seen them before.  And when you come face to face with them, sometimes you are surprised that they have changed…like seeing someone you haven’t seen for a long time.  They are bigger than you remembered or smaller…a color is not what you thought or there is some detail you see you never knew existed.  It has been a fascinating study in my own recollections and perceptions of these works.

So Day 5 will have us visiting the Musee d’Orsay which houses a vast array of Impressionist works and then in the evening Mr. Anders and I are dolling up to go see an opera at the Palais Garnier!  I am excited!

Bonjour!

~Mrs. A

Paris Day 5: The Musee d’Orsay or My Impression of the Impressionists & The Opera Hits a Low Note

Bonjour!

Day 5 is Friday, June 27 and the calendar has one museum on it: the Musee d’Orsay.  The museum was originally a railway station, built for the Universal Exposition of 1900 but was transformed into a modern museum in 1986.  Artwork from three major sources including the Louvre became part of its permanent collection.  For my part, I was most anxious to become personally acquainted with the work of the Impressionists, and they did not disappoint!

Taking Mr. Anders’ sage suggestion of “starting at the top so we can walk downstairs as we get tired”, we began at the highest floor of the museum where we encountered the works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted dance-hall women from the clubs of Montmarte, which we will visit during our stay.  We also viewed paintings by Georges Seurat who invented the technique known as pointillism, or divisionism, in which tiny dots of color are placed near each other to create the illusion of color mixing from afar.  Some of my former students may remember doing a project utilizing this technique with markers on a still life.  Mr. Anders and I were both moved by Renoir’s “City Dance” both for it’s light subject and light brushwork.

Then, we came to another room where an old friend waited to greet us…

There is part of me that feels Vincent Van Gogh’s life and works have, to a degree, been taken advantage of.  Everyone likes to smirk and have a joke at the painter who was “crazy” and cut off his ear (in truth, he severed a piece of it, not the entire thing).  But I have always had a deep and profound affinity for Van Gogh’s struggle to comprehend his life and world through his painting.  His attempts to master himself were notedly unsuccessful, as he ended his life via suicide in 1890, but I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t this fight against himself that made him who he was as an artist.  I wonder if, had he known that his greatness as an artist lie in his failure to conform to standard norms of society, would he have changed it?  Would you sacrifice your creativity to be like everyone else?  It seems Vincent Van Gogh just could not.

As a result, Van Gogh’s canvases are, in my opinion, the most brilliant works in the museum.  They practically leap from the walls in their boldness of color and put to shame any attempts by those around him to compete.

Van Gogh

The intensity of his line work speaks to us today, Van Gogh is not mute in death, he is alive, on the walls which I believe is the goal of any artist to hold a paintbrush.  No other artist came close to the drama, joy and truth that Van Gogh expressed in the work of his all too brief life.  I was moved by the Starry Night, a differing version of the work that bears the same title which we all know, housed in New York (currently traveling).  The Paris version is less intense than it’s New York cousin, Van Gogh even shows a pair of lovers serenely strolling down the banks of the river that reflects the lights of the lamp posts.  It is interesting to note that the more dramatic version was created after he checked into an asylum.  I always tell my students, you can see a lot of emotion in a line!  I would like to explore portrait drawing utilizing oil pastel to create similar results to Van Gogh’s portrait of Dr. Gatchet or his self-portrait seen here.

Other favorites here included works by Monet, Renoir, Degas and look who else we found along the way…it’s Whistler’s Mother!

Another item I found extremely interesting where the black shadow theater puppets which were on display.  It seems prior to the cinema, Parisians would enjoy the theatrics of cut-out silhouettes which were projected onto a screen and created various plays.  Music and backgrounds were added to make it a thrilling and dramatic adventure.  The caricature of these cutouts were amazing, each one had a definite quality and personality to it and yet they were so simple!  I would love for my students to experiment with the idea of expression through simplified means.

Shadow Theater puppets

Among the other artworks I found moving, the work of the Symbolists whose work combined a dream imagery and mythology to create sometimes spooky images that really made you think about what they meant, as well as the Art Noveau works that incorporate curved lines and ornate decoration.  Gustav Kilmt, the famed artist of “The Kiss” which appears on our mural, is a part of this movement.  We saw one canvas by him in the Musee d’Orsay, pictured below.

Klimt

Overall, I enjoyed the works in the Musee d’Orsay more than the Louvre.  The works here are all from the time period between 1848 and 1914.  It seems to me this was a time of radical thinking in terms of the artistic approach and the colors, style and subject matter all reflect this.  I was really enthusiastic about the work I saw and really inspired by it.

That evening we got dressed up and went to see a performance entitled ‘Melancholia’ at the Palais Garnier.  Part of the reason I wanted to go to the opera was that a) I am a music fan and b) I wanted to see the building.  The building didn’t disappoint, but neither Mr. Anders or I were too impressed with the opera.  However, sitting in the plush red velvet chairs of our box, staring out at the guilted, ornate decoration and seeing Marc Chagall’s boisterous and playful ceiling mural floating above the audience with the massive heap of chandelier (which, unlike the novel Phantom of the Opera did not come crashing down…thank goodness!) underneath it made the evening a treat for me.  Not sure about Mr. Anders though!  Although, one pearl of wisdom was gleaned from this experience: we discovered the Metro!

~Au revoir,

Mrs. A

Paris Day 6: Feeling Middle-Aged

Bonjour!

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Day 6, or Saturday, June 28, found us feeling a bit middle-aged after all the walking we had done.  So, we employed our new-found knowledge of the Metro transportation system, which is the underground, or subway system (which we don’t have in Houston), to take us to our destinations for the day: the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the luminous Sainte-Chapelle, and the Musee de Moyen-Age (Museum of the Middle Ages).

When we exited the Metro, we could hear a lot of commotion coming from the area of Notre-Dame and when we entered the courtyard we discovered that a lovely mass was taking place.  There was a huge screen that projected images from inside the cathedral while over 1,000 chairs were setup outside for worshippers to participate.  I particularly enjoyed the music and the peal of the bells as the tolled out over the city.  The cathedral was closed for several hours to accommodate for clean-up so we decided to mosey over to Sainte-Chapelle while we waited to enter Notre Dame.

Sainte-Chapelle was built in 1248 by Louis IX as a home for the relics he had collected including the Crown of Thorns (now kept at Notre-Dame) and a fragment of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  Whether you are religious or not, this structure certainly had an ethereal quality, described by one as “a gateway to heaven.”  What makes this building so magnificent are the 50 foot columns containing 15 stained glass windows that depict over 1,000 religious themes.  The entire room, therefore, is immersed in the glowing light from these windows and it is absolutely breath-taking!  I was so inspired that I am convinced we must do a project on stained glass next year!

Images from Sainte-Chapelle

As we walked back towards Notre-Dame we discovered the Crypte Archeologique which is an underground crypt in front of the Parvis, or main square, in front of the cathedral.  Mr. Anders was especially interested in how the Parisii, a Celtic tribe from whom the city gets it’s name, were able to generate sophisticated means of underground heating for their houses.  The settlements we explored there (or what was left of them), pre-date Notre-Dame by several hundred years.  It was really fascinating to see how much archeologists can glean from the ruins of buildings…Indiana Jones, for real!

When we got back to the surface a line had already formed of people waiting to get in to Notre-Dame.  We waited our turn and then got a chance to walk into the building that inspired Victor Hugo’s acclaimed novel, and one of my favorite Disney movies, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” (or, “Notre-Dame de Paris”, as it was originally titled).  I have to say, next to the small, but illuminating feel of Sainte-Chapelle, Notre-Dame seemed to me cold, tall and austere…very remote.  The exterior is certainly more impressive with its spires, flying buttresses, statuary and let’s not forget…the gargoyles!  The columns are very thick and tall.  As you move down the center of the building you can gaze up at the high-vaulted ceilings, a staple of Gothic architecture, as well as the North and South Rose Windows on either side, each featuring religious-themed events.  I found an interesting contrast of style on the altar.  Nicolas Coustou’s Pieta, sculpted in white

Altarpiece at Notre-Dame

marble in a classical style, however there was also a very modern looking altar-table or pulpit.  I have been unable to find any information on it as of yet, but it was definitely an intriguing contrast of styles!  It makes me wonder, does one need to conform to stylistic treatment in order to make a successful statement or, is contrast, in and of itself, enough?  I liked the fact that this piece was so different, even though it doesn’t quite seem to fit.  Kind of like the glass pyramid at the Louvre…I think it works!  What do you think?

As we moved around the sides of the altar we passed the entrance to the treasury where many of the cathedral’s prized relics are housed, though we did not go in.  There were several large paintings hung in the side chapels as well as ornate carvings on the chancel screen and choir stalls representing scenes from Christianity.  The sculpted reliefs on the chancel screen were impressive!

Chancel screen at Notre-Dame Cathedral

After seeing the interior of Notre-Dame we wanted to climb to the top, but it was starting to get into evening and we were both a bit weary so we decided we would put off the Musee de Moyen-Age for tomorrow and tackle the stairs another day.  So, armed with books stained-glass windows and thoughts of transforming BHI into a sacred space, we headed home for the day…via the Metro!

~Au revoir,

Mrs. A

Paris Day 7: Museum Mania!

Bonjour!

Day 7 is Sunday, June 29 and today we have a big list ahead of us: three museums to hit including the Musee de Moyen-Age (formerly known as the Cluny, or the Museum of the Middle Ages), the Rodin museum and Maillol museum.  Auguste Rodin the the artist famous for, among other sculptures, “The Thinker”, but I confess I do not know much about the artist!  Of course, that is why I’m here…to learn!

It is so hard to say what my “favorite” memory of Paris is because each day brought new and exciting things, some of which I had anticipated, and many I was not expecting.  The Musee de Moyen-Age was one of those lovely unexpected joys.  The original structure is one of the oldest mansions in Paris built by the abbots of Cluny in 1330 and next to it resides a 2nd-century Roman bath.  I was very much looking forward to seeing the famed Lady and the Unicorn tapestries who are renown as much for their exquisite craftsmanship as well as the mysteries surrounding their creation and meaning.  Novelist Tracy Chevalier (who also wrote the novel which was recently made into a film, Girl with a Pearl Earring) wrote a story about the making of these tapestries, though much of it is supposition.  If you click on the site I’ve linked to, however, you can see some good images of the tapestries.  They are hung in a large room with really dim lights to help protect them.  Look closely at one of the images, notice how the colors are slightly different along the bottom portion?  We noticed that as well and it turns out that from 1889-1892 a restoration

Footwear from the Middle Ages

attempt was made, however the chemical dyes used faded out much quicker than the original ones!  I think we might paint this series to display in our advanced painting class next year!  Other exciting items from the Museum of the Middle Ages were insights into life in the middle ages such as shoes and combs as well as the armor, weaponry and of course, more paintings, statues and stained glass windows!

Our next stop was the Musee Rodin.  Rodin was widely acknowledged during his life as the greatest sculptor of the 19th century.  He lived and worked in a state-owned apartment so that when he died, all his works were left to the nation.  Therefore, we got a very comprehensive view of his masterpieces.  The Burghers of Calais, The

Mr. Anders ponders good art

Thinker, and the Gates of Hell are among some of his colossal works to be displayed in an outdoor garden and we were enjoying the bright, sunny weather and beautiful blue sky amongst the 2,000 rose bushes that accompanied us.  What fascinates me about these works in bronze is the rough quality of them.  They seem to have almost an unfinished feel, raw and powerful.  Rodin was once accused of having made a cast directly from his model because the finished piece was so lifelike!  From then on he had to defend himself by making his works larger than life in order to avoid this speculation.  He certainly understood human anatomy, with all the muscles of his figures caught up in tension.  Indoors we viewed some of his marble work including the passionate and sensuousThe Kiss.  I also found inspiration in his sculptures of hands.

Inspiration for a new project at BHI!

The slight abstractness of the composition as well as the design of the negative space made these pieces seem weightless.  It reminds me of a plaster project I did in college.  I think that needs to be investigated for my students as sculpting is one thing I am a bit afraid of!

For the next stop, Mr. A went to the army museum while I investigated the works of Artistide Maillol whose bronze female statues I was drawing one day outside the Louvre.  This being the first time Mr. Anders and I parted ways, naturally I got lost!  But eventually I found my way there.  I have to say, French women are quite slim so I appreciated seeing the roundness of Maillol’s forms!  Also on display were works by Picasso and Rodin.

Afterwards, we met up, walked back to our friendly Metro station and headed back to our hotel for the evening.  Tomorrow, we visit the Picasso museum and the Museum of Modern Art, housed in the famous Pompidou Centre.

Au revoir,

~Mrs. A

Paris Day 8: Crazy Art

Bonjour!

Day 8 is Monday, June 30.  It also marks the last day we can use our Paris Museum pass so we’re planning on using it at the Musee Picasso and the Musee National d’Art Moderne in the Pompidou Center.  Now, I must confess, the Picasso museum did not allow photography (the only one of our trip) and Mr. Anders went back to the army museum, taking the camera with him, so I have no pictures to post from this day, but I will recount it as vividly as I can!

Pablo Picasso was born Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruiz y Picasso.  Now imagine writing all that on an assignment!  He is probably most famous for co-founding the art movement of Cubism but his art had several developmental periods, or stages.  I confess, Picasso is not my favorite artist, however, I learned a lot at his museum and found myself jotting notes in my notebook regarding ideas for projects, more so than any other museum!  Picasso worked in a variety of media, or art tools, so he wasn’t just a sculptor or a painter.  I really liked his assemblage pieces where he had taken cardboard and constructed it into forms.  I think that is a project my students would be interested in doing as the cardboard requires decisive cuts and would therefore be more difficult to mess up!  Picasso’s Mandolin y Clarinet, 1913 was an inspriation there.  I then found watercolor paintings that seemed to have been done from the assemblages and I think that would make a great secondary project.

photo courtesy Musee Picasso website

Another really fascinating idea was the use of sand on the canvases of works such as Glass and Pipe, 1918 andMandolin on a Table, 1924.  I liked how the background was created with the texture of the sand and the contour line images were “drawn” out of it.  This is almost a subtractive process, taking away from the background to creative the positive image in the foreground.  Of course, I can see making a field trip to Galveston out of it to get the sand but we’ll see what’s possible!  Picasso also did some really interesting collage projects where he took paper cut-outs with various backgrounds (we could do this with scrapbook paper, wallpaper, newspaper or even wrapping paper) and would use them to create a larger image, then drawing on top of whole thing to make a larger piece still.  His Woman Naked, 1955 was a great example of this.

Next, Mr. Anders went back, camera in hand, to the Army Museum while I headed to the Centre Georges Pompidou where the Modern Art Museum is housed.  The building, opened in 1977, really is a work of art all by itself.  Standing out amongst centuries-old buildings, this one makes no qualms about being ‘modern.’  The pipes which run the water, electricity and air conditioning to the buildings are on the outside and brightly colored in green, yellow and blue.  The escalator runs along the outside as well, offering wonderful views of the city.  Now, being on my own, I felt naturally a bit disoriented, but the Pompidou Center is no help when it comes to navigating!  Since I am a born shopper I was able to easily find the bookshop where I picked up a book in the Pompidou Center just to be able to figure out where the museum was!  Once I figured that out I had about two and a half hours to stroll through the museum.  I really enjoyed the museum and would have loved to spent even more time there.  The modern artists really seek to expand and find new approaches to their art, so it wasn’t as much of “the same old thing” that you saw in the Louvre, but more of a kaleidoscope that grew and changed.  I liked Henri Laurens comment that, ”In a sculpture, the voids must count as much as the solids (1951).”  This seems like an approach to life as well as art!  I was inspired by Giacometti’s elongated sculptures (maybe we could do something with wire and aluminum foil?), as well as Henri Matisse’s paintings as well as his paper cut-outs.  I think Kinetic Art, or art that moves would be great fun for my students as well, and what middle-school artist would notlove to fling paint on a surface ala Jackson Pollack??  I saw works by Mondrian, Kandinsky, Warhol, Picasso, Chagall, Miro, Duchamp, just about every major modern artist I had ever read about!  It was great fun!!  I wish I had been able to take some pictures that day but you can certainly investigate more about the museum and it’s collections at their website.

So now we’re really running down on days!  We’ll visit the artist’s haven of Montmarte tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it!

Au revoir,

Mrs. A

Paris Day 9: Meet the Montmartrians

Bonjour!

Day 9, our second to last day, is Tuesday, July 1 and we are taking a trip to the artist’s colony ofMontmartre.  Montmarte is geographically the highest point in all of Paris has a fascinating history, that of Saint Denis, the Bishop of Paris and patron saint of France.  In 250 AD he was beheaded with a sword.  According to legend, he picked up his head and walked for two miles, preaching the entire time!  So, in old French, Montmartre literally means, ‘mountain of the martyr’.  Now, how is that for an introduction!

Montmartre became an artists’ hotspot in the late nineteenth century.  Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani had studios here.  The cabarets and dance halls were made famous in paintings, drawings and lithographs by artists such as André Derain, Suzanne Valadon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Maurice Utrillo and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.  The stories and lives of these artists are really fascinating!

Sacre-Coeur Basilica

Mr. Anders and I set out to explore the Montmartre Musuem, the Espace Dali and the Sacre-Coeur Basilica.  The first, and easiest landmark to find was Sacre-Coeur, or Sacred Heart with it’s huge white dome serving as a focal point to the city below.  An interesting fact that I learned, the church is built of travertine which is a stone that constantly exudes calcite which means the building will always appear white, despite weathering and pollution.  We had to climb many, many, MANY stairs to get there, but it was worth it.  Sacre-Coeur was built from 1876-1912 as a means of atonement for those who lost their lives during the French Commune as well as the Franco-Prussian War.  We first entered the basilica, or large church, and viewed the interior which is extremely large and spacious.  You can not help but feel the spiritual presence here and I myself lit a candle for two family members.  It had a much more open feel, unlike Notre-Dame but was similar in the fact that there where huge stone columns and everything had a solid, fortified feel.  The draw here, like Sainte-Chapelle with it’s stained-glass, where the mosaics.  We were not allowed to use photography inside the church, but the mosaic in the apse, entitled Christ in Majesty, is among the largest in the world.  The dedication of the artists to put all those tiny pieces of cut glass together in servitude and reverence was truly inspiring!

View from the top of Sacre-Coeur

After our tour of the nave and the crypts, we headed to the top of the basilica where we were faced with some truly jaw-dropping views of Paris.  And…more stairs!

After Sacre-Coeur, we wandered through the Place du Tertre, or what I would come to term, “Place du Touriste!” as they had souvenir shops galore as well as street artisans who would give you a quick portrait for a few Euros.  As we wandered I observed how the artists would capture a likeness in conte crayon or pencil for an eager client.  It would be fun to have students set up at open house next school year, capturing portraits of family and friends!

When then found the Musee de Montmartre.  I figured this would simply be a museum dedicated to the art of Montmartre but in fact it turned out to be a history of the butte itself.  Here we learned about the legend of St. Denis and suspected Druidic origins of the mount (suspected due to it’s role as the highest point in France, but non-confirmable) as well as the uprisings of the Communards, the building of Sacre-Coeur and role of the bohemians.

Salis's original lithography for Le Chat Noir (the Black Cat)

We also discovered some much anticipated art, including the original litograph for the nightclub Le Chat Noir, which also appears on our mural!

We then visited the Espace Dali, a must since I do not know of any middle-school student who is not the slightest bit intrigued by the fascinating figure of Salvador Dali!  Made famous by my students on our mural for his “melting clocks”, Spanish born Dali made famous the art movement of Surrealism, which seeks to incorporate dream-like, visionary imagery into an illogical composition.  Yeah, it’s hard to grasp, as I learned in trying to teach it!  But the works on display were fascinating!  I was impressed, not only with his

Bulletism: Dali creates the head of Christ out of ink blots

sculptures, but also his “bulletist” works where he literally shot ink at the paper, creating an ink blot, that Dali, with his fantastic imagination, then turned into all sorts of wonderful and strange images.  Now, I am still trying to figure out just how we can do a project like this because I think it would be the limit for my students (but I don’t think Mrs. Harrell wants us to turn the art room into a giant mess of ink blots)!

We ended our day in Montmartre with a stroll (which rather felt like a hike!) downhill to the questionable area of Pigalle because I wanted to see the facade of the famous dance hall, the Moulin Rogue, where the can-can reigned supreme (also the site for the inventive movie of the same title by Baz Luhrmann).  Along the way we also discovered the current

Le Chat Noir today

incantation of Le Chat Noir, the club that the black cat lithograph was created for.  Notice, after all this time, the image is still being used!

Our curiosity and imaginations satiated for the day, we headed back to our hotel to rest, plan, and prepare for our final day in Paris!

Au revoir,

~Mrs. A

Paris Day 10: Chillin’ with the Chimera

Bonjour-

On our final day, July 2, 2008, we decided to go back and do a few of the things we’d walked,

The stryga gazes out over Paris atop Notre-Dame

past, thought about, or wanted to but didn’t get to earlier.  First stop: Climb Notre-Dame, so we hoped back on the Metro and made our way there.  We waited in line for about an hour in order to get our chance.  It was worth the wait because I most wanted to see the chimeras.  I think we will explore utilizing our air-dry clay next year to make some of these fanciful creatures!  The stryga means “bird of the night” in Greek.  All of the chimera are made up of some sort of amalgamation of birds, beasts and imagination.  I was impressed with the variety: some had long

A chimera finishes his lunch

necks, some with horns, a few even appeared to be chomping on some remanent of a tasty lunch!  The chimera are the statues atop Notre-Dame, the gargoyles are the gutters that pop out and allow for drainage.  I wondered why such grotesque-looking characters would adorn a church, but according to the cathedrals’ website, the creatures are there to remind us that “we are all loved by  God.”  So that was a nice thought to bear in mind.

As we continued on our tour we were guided into the south tower belfry where the largest bell, the “Emmanuel” bell hangs.  This special bell is only rung on major Catholic feast days and weighs more than 13 tons!  Outside the belfry we were treated to some of the most glorious panoramic views of Paris yet!

It is amusing that it waited until our last day to rain on us, but sure enough, as we were walking from Notre-Dame to the Louvre, the sluggish, lumbering big, fat raindrops became more insistent.  We also discovered that my travel umbrella had seen it’s last trip!  So we sought shelter at Starbucks in the Louvre where I took a moment to jot down my impressions of Notre-Dame, the chimera and make some quick sketches based off some photos.

We next took the Metro to the Opera where we purchased tickets to take an unguided tour.  We enjoyed wandering around the opera library where stage set mock-ups were on display as well as the wealth of literature and music.  We were stunned by the ornateness of the grand foyer and some of the other spaces including the marble steps of the grand staircase.

Mr. Anders at the Grand Staircase

We were not allowed to go into the auditorium on this day due to rehearsals but were glad we had done so when we saw the performance.  Overall, I think this building, artistic merits aside, is a wonderful illustration of how a space and fire the imagination.  It was hard to believe that anyone could NOT be inspired to write a novel after visiting the Palais Garnier or the Notre-Dame Cathedral!

So, we head home to review all the materials I have found for the classroom, tally up receipts (I have actually been doing this all along ) and pack up…tomorrow we’re heading home!  Paris has been so full of inspiration and ideas, I know I will need the remainder of the summer just to fully accumulate my thoughts!

Bonne nuit,

~Mrs. A

Bon Voyage, Paris: My Final Thoughts

We left Paris on July 3, 2008.  I have now been home over one solid week, working on uploading all the thoughts, commentary, videos and photos of our trip.  To say this post harbors my “final thoughts” on Paris is a bit silly…I will constantly think back on this amazing trip.  But as much as I enjoyed the trip itself, writing about the experience after the fact has been just as exciting because now, with the power of the Internet (I’ve had at least 7 windows and multiple applications open at any given time!), I’ve been able to go back and research some of the things we saw and understand and appreciate them that much more.  Insight, no matter where it comes from, is always a welcome light, and I’ve also enjoyed recollecting my itinerary with friends and family.  If and when I ever go back, there is still so much more to see, but I think in my 10 days time, I really got a lot of source material and ideas to last years into the future!

I definitely want to extend another huge thank you to the Fund for Teachers program who made this trip possible.  I will be speaking to our faculty during staff development to encourage my co-workers to apply for this experience.  I believe it does nothing but good for teachers, the teaching process and most of all, the students who will benefit from all the experiences I’ve had.

I also want to thank the friends and family who supported me in the grant-writing process, the pre-trip travels, the actual travels, and back again.  Mr. Anders was a great companion, with the uncanny ability to read a map and narrate footage (he also carried the backpack and souvenirs without complaint, my hat’s…er, beret, is off to him there!).

For my former 8th grade advanced art students…I will be posting photos during the summer from our Mural Mayhem experience this past school year soon, so keep checking the blog!  Also, I have postcards for each and everyone of you, purchased in Paris.  Unfortunately, I neglected to get addresses so I could send them from Paris…I knew I forgot something!  So I will be mailing those out as soon as I can get back into school and get the address (in the meantime, if you’d like to email me your mailing address, I can mail them quicker that way landers@pasadenaisd.org).

As I watched the Eiffel Tower grow smaller and sink slowly from view, I realized in my heart that I was glad to be heading home.  The next day, July 4, found me a little more patriotic than previous Independence Days.  I felt so grateful for things I had taken for granted so easily, like driving, speaking the same language, my family and having a job to do that is challenging an fulfilling.  I love trips, but I miss my routine.  I look forward to the weeks ahead and all the planning and preparations I will be making based off these experiences as well as taking some time to do some drawing and painting of my own based off some of the photos and things I’ve seen.

I hope all who read this blog are enjoying the summer months.

~Mrs. A