In which we learn more History of Paris

This was the second half of our “Practice your French and learn some French history” tours: Palais Royal – Musee du Louvre, which is, interestingly enough, a stop on the 1 metro line and all of 4 away from my apartment. I live in an awesome location. Anyway.


These are the Colonnes de Buren, a modern artist who was asked to do an installation in 1986 by Francois Mitterand, then President. They are (obviously) still standing, and the kicked off a grand debate about the intersection of ancient history and modern art.


Here’s the wide view, with a random man walking down the middle. Only he’s not so random, because you see the red boards up all around the courtyard? He was helping to install those, and we got there just as they were putting up the last two. We nearly got clipped on the head, in fact. There are holes through which you can see the colonnes, but still. Lucky!


The black-and-white stripes were chosen to match these shades on the windows of the Palais Royal. Note: these are the same shades used at the Sorbonne.


The fountain in the next courtyard of the Palais Royal, behind which you see the windows of Sarkozy’s office. At least, I think that’s what it is – the explanation was a little hard to follow and it was a while ago. To the left, with the camera, is Monica, whose middle name is Mairead, which amuses me to no end (Chinese mother, Irish father). You might not be able to tell, but that ponytail she’s wearing? Goes past her butt. Whenever she’s not wearing her hair in a bun, she gets so many exclamations on it.


After the Palais Royal, we went to the Comedie Francaise, where I took no pictures, and then to the Louvre. This is one of the exhibitions you can see as you pass through the tunnel to the main courtyard. Look! Free Louvre!


And another!


The Pyramid, of course. I’m not really happy with these pictures. I think it’s the color of the sky.

The courtyard, and the Eiffel Tower, followed by…


The view straight down through the Tuileries to the Arc de Triomphe. Someday I’m going to have to walk that.


One of the smaller pyramids, off to the side. I wanted to create a juxtaposition of the modern glass art pointing to the old stone angel, but it kind of failed.


One of the gorgeous windows.


And, of course, seen from the “front”, a.k.a., the Tuileries, which we walked through next, and which I spoke about. They’re named after the palace which used to stand there, which was named after the tile kilns (tile = tuile) which were knocked down so the palace could be built. They’re not really my kind of garden, but they are green and pretty and popular with both the French and tourists.


This is a detail on the arch you walk through to enter the gardens. I thought it was very cool that, rather than being a scene of war, it’s just these people standing and talking. I’m sure it’s a very important moment in France’s history, but I just liked that.


Hee, pigeon on the head! I’m seriously, like, 8.



There are all these (replicas, I’m guessing) classic statues stationed frequently throughout the gardens. Here’s Theseus and the Minotaur, and then the rape of…ok, I’m not sure. The centaurs tried to rape a LOT of women.

And that’s our tour! Next up: an idle Saturday, complete with a trip to the base of the Eiffel Tower and the 10th Annual Techno Parade. Yes, really.

In which we visit the Centre Pompidou and I understand nothing

One of our Grand Cultural Excursions, like the Musee d’Orsay (and our later trip to see Moliere’s Le Tartuffe) was a trip to the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. To give fair warning: I don’t like modern art. Some of it is quite cool and interesting and groundbreaking, but a lot of it seems like, to paraphrase David Sedaris, it’s the art of people with little talent and lots of drugs. If you can’t appreciate art for its beauty or meaning, or even care about it without a whole long explanation, then what’s the point?

This here’s the front of the building. I like the hamster-bubble-tunnel walkway on the front, but in general, I think it’s kind of hideous. I don’t have a picture of the back, but it looks like a massive factory was cut in half, with pipes leading to nowhere. I’ve definitely seen uglier buildings, but not many of them have been in Paris.


This is one of the views from the top of the hamster walk. And look! You can see my bedroom window! (And that's as much as I'm going to point out on the Internet.)


Another view, this time of the only skyscrapers in Paris. Everyone was very upset when they went up, and now, nothing is allowed to be taller than the Arc de Triomphe (which you can see, if you follow that street down to the horizon and look a little to the right).


Another view, this time with Notre Dame RIGHT THERE. It's about a 10-minute walk from my apartment, and some of that is stoplights.


One of the surrealists. I like the colors here; the pieces in this museum that I enjoyed were few, but this was one of them. Of course, now I can’t remember who it is.



I LOVED the mobiles. They’re very cool and pretty, and it’s very hard to get the halves as perfectly balanced as they are. Our tour guide (who was lots of fun, by the way: you could tell that she really loved the art and was really excited to work there, and even if I didn’t agree, I loved that) spent a couple minutes blowing on the hanging one trying to get it to move, and when it didn’t, she just gave up and tugged on one of the petals. We were all horrified/amused.


This was the first time I’ve had Picasso explained so I understood (ironically, it was in French): it’s all about movement. Rather than his subjects sitting still for all eternity, he’s painted this woman so that she appears to be constantly turning her head back and forth. Observe the fact that there’s a profile and yet, both eyes.


I just like the fact that there’s an outline of a hand on here. I’m not sure why it’s there or what it means, but I thought it was cool.


I’m not sure I completely understood the explanation of this (I definitely didn’t catch the artist’s name), but this is interesting. It was an artist who built himself a little house and locked himself in it, apart from all human interaction, for a year. Then he disassembled the building and sold pieces of it. While I think this is very interesting and useful – he pushed the limits of what people can do and plumbed the depths of human psychology – I’m not sure it counts as “art”. If he’d written a paper on it, he’d be a lauded psychologist, and deservedly so, but as it is, I’m kind of baffled as to why this is worth money.


This is a work by a suicidal artist meant to evoke intestines. Apparently, vertical represents human where horizontal represents nature. It’s all about emotions and stuff, and there was something about her mother in there, too. While I’m not sure I understand it, I can kind of get where it’s coming from.


This, on the other hand, I don’t get at all. There’s probably something about climbing to heaven, blah blah blah, but really, this is just gym class.


This was made by creating an “egg” out of terracotta, into which the artist pressed himself, fully clothed. You can even see the buttons on his shirt. Also, that bit up top where it’s kind of flattened except for the large round bit sticking out? Yeah, that’s the inside of his mouth.


While I think this is kind of cool, the rest of this room was filled with inflatable chairs. Apparently, this is art? I don’t know. This is why I’m not studying art history or working at a museum.


I got yelled at for accidentally forgetting to turn off my flash on this picture. I have no idea what it’s supposed to represent, but I think it looks cool.


This? I do not get. And there was absolutely no explanation of it – I looked, wondering what the significance of the numbers was. I have no idea.


This was painted using blue paint smeared on the bodies of naked women. I’ve had this explained to me as having nothing to do with the finished product and being all about the process of painting it.



These are my favorite things in the whole museum. I love European exit signs: they’re so dramatic. A WHEELCHAIR escaping FLAMES! It’s fantastic.


This is Julia outside a weird little hut thing which reminded me of the tree sculptures on the Quiet Green at Brown. Julia’s a senior art history major who is currently working on her honors thesis and studying for the GRE. She doesn’t like modern art, either. Vindication!

I forgot to take a picture of the fountain, which is full of sculptures by two artists, a husband and wife. It's pretty cool. I prefer his black metallic sculptures to her colored stuff, but it's a cool blend.

And that’s the Centre Pompidou! Next up, another lecture tour.

In which we tour churches and gardens

Sorry it’s been so long. I got distracted, and these take a LOT of time to write. But I’m going to try to get the next few done over the next week.

For the first three weeks we were here, we were taking a French class every afternoon through the Brown in France program. As part of this, we had to research and present on a series of historic places in France. This is the first day’s series.

First on the list was St. Germain, one of the oldest churches in Paris. We couldn’t go inside because there was some sort of funeral starting up just as we got there, but I hear it’s beautiful.


The main tower of the church.


The front of the church. You can see the hearse and the mourners gathering in front.


The detail over the front door. I can’t tell if the white stripes are bird droppings or stained stone, but I think it looks pretty cool. (Now go to http://www.googlism.com/ and type in “White Stripes”. Hee. I am subtly manipulating the music industry!)

We also, in this neighborhood, saw two of the hugely famous cafes which the literati and artists (Camus, Hemingway, Sartre) would come to: Les Deux Magots (named for the two Chinaman statues that frame the front door) and Le Flore. We also passed the boutiques which I will never be able to afford: Armani, Chanel, etc. (It’s sad. The displays were lovely.) This, of course, was all on our way to another church: St. Sulpice!


Part of the fountain in front of the church. I like the way the sheets of water came out in this one.

Have I mentioned yet that I LOVE taking pictures of pigeons on statues’ heads? I don’t know why, but I think it’s awesome and hilarious. Maybe because the statues always look so dignified and yet they have absolutely no control over whether or not a pigeon is sitting on their head.


More of the fountain, yay!


Half of the church is under construction. You can’t see it here, but the two towers don’t match. We thought this meant one was HUGE and one was tiny, or one was vertical and the other horizontal, or something like that. Nope. One’s round, and the other’s an octagon. It’s hard to notice. It’s disappointing.


A terrible picture of the organ in the church, which is HUGE. (Here's a good one.)


I like this one, too. My pictures of crucifixes always come out interestingly lit.


The Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, in a kind of fake-rock alcove. I don’t know. It looked cool, and there was a spotlight on her. Unfortunately, the rest of the church was too dark for any of my pictures to be even halfway decent, and eventually I gave up.

So we moved on to the Luxembourg Gardens.


Here’s a sort of overview of the place…


…and here’s a close-up of the pool. There were little kids playing with boats behind that bush.


Giant head! There was a lot of modern art mixed in with the ancient statues: some of it awesome (like this), some of it cool (like the one with a sign warning people not to climb it – is it really art if it’s basically a jungle gym?), and some of it horrifying (like the giant flowerpot with legs growing upside-down out of it, which a French man actually spit on in passing. We’re not sure if he did it intentionally, or if he just didn’t want to spit on us).

There’s more modern art to come next time, when we visit the Centre Pompidou (which is literally across the street from my apartment), but to leave off, the Luxembourg Palace: