Back from Paris!
Jun. 18th, 2024 06:55 pmI am returned from Paris! Specifically, I got back to my home at about midnight last night, and as I went right back into work today I am currently quite tired, so will not describe the trip in any detail just now. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
littlerhymes and I met for a week in Paris, and there were pastries! Paintings! A pyramid-shaped chocolate mousse in the Louvre cafe! A trip to Giverny through a spitting rain, which gave way to sun just before we arrived at Monet's lily pond. A day at the Musee d'Orsay to bask in the Impressionists...
Although in fact what I liked best at the Musee d'Orsay was the exhibit "Exhibition Paris 1874," which had paintings from both the first impressionist exhibit and the 1874 Salon. Ironically, but quite understandably in these days when you can buy Monet notecards in every store, it was actually the Salon art that struck me as something new and different. It's all a matter of what you're used to! You just don't see Jules Bretton's painting of a peasant girl gazing out at sea on tea towels these days.
(Some Salon reviewer apparently compared the peasant girl gazing out at sea to "France waiting for her king," which made Jules Bretton hopping mad. He painted PEASANTS because of his sympathies with the POOR and now this critic is mucking it all up with royalism!!!)
I was interested to see that there were actually a number of women exhibiting in the Salon (about 7% of the artists, one of the captions noted). Also, there were a number of Salon paintings who also had paintings in the Impressionist exhibit, or would have paintings in some future impressionist exhibit - and quite a lot of painters exhibiting with the impressionists who had exhibited at the Salon before, and would again...
"It's almost like... there was a lot of overlap between the impressionists and the Salon?" I mused. And then I turned the corner, and indeed, that was the very point that the exhibit made in the next room! Perfect timing. Just a really well-designed exhibit. And a wonderful collection of paintings, impressionist and Salon art both. Just a really lovely trip.
littlerhymes and I met for a week in Paris, and there were pastries! Paintings! A pyramid-shaped chocolate mousse in the Louvre cafe! A trip to Giverny through a spitting rain, which gave way to sun just before we arrived at Monet's lily pond. A day at the Musee d'Orsay to bask in the Impressionists... Although in fact what I liked best at the Musee d'Orsay was the exhibit "Exhibition Paris 1874," which had paintings from both the first impressionist exhibit and the 1874 Salon. Ironically, but quite understandably in these days when you can buy Monet notecards in every store, it was actually the Salon art that struck me as something new and different. It's all a matter of what you're used to! You just don't see Jules Bretton's painting of a peasant girl gazing out at sea on tea towels these days.
(Some Salon reviewer apparently compared the peasant girl gazing out at sea to "France waiting for her king," which made Jules Bretton hopping mad. He painted PEASANTS because of his sympathies with the POOR and now this critic is mucking it all up with royalism!!!)
I was interested to see that there were actually a number of women exhibiting in the Salon (about 7% of the artists, one of the captions noted). Also, there were a number of Salon paintings who also had paintings in the Impressionist exhibit, or would have paintings in some future impressionist exhibit - and quite a lot of painters exhibiting with the impressionists who had exhibited at the Salon before, and would again...
"It's almost like... there was a lot of overlap between the impressionists and the Salon?" I mused. And then I turned the corner, and indeed, that was the very point that the exhibit made in the next room! Perfect timing. Just a really well-designed exhibit. And a wonderful collection of paintings, impressionist and Salon art both. Just a really lovely trip.
