Another beautiful day -- not quite as nice as yesterday -- white-ish skies instead of deep blue -- but sunny and warm -- almost too warm -- went out today wearing a shirt and a light windbreaker -- had to take the jacket off within twety minutes -- roasting -- and then I look around me and see all these people wearing long wool coats, leather jackets and scarves -- don't know how they can do it! It has to be a fashion statement -- they can't possibly be cold!
I have noticed that people here tend to "dress up" more -- haven't figured out yet whether it's because it's the "big city" or because it's France -- and it tends to be more the younger women and men -- in the middle of the day they are "dressed to kill!" The outfits are almost always black -- short, short skirts, black nylons of varying patterns, blouses (always with a high neckline), heels, dress coats, a scarf and always wearing make-up -- a much more formal look than in the US.
The guys in their twenties either wear dark suits and ties or black pants, a dress or casual shirt and a black (typically leather) jacket with black shoes. The tourists, on the other hand, are a whole dfferent story -- pretty much anything goes in a very unformal fashion.
Older people dress not so formal but still nice -- women wear dresses or longer, dark skirts, wool coats (never anything nylon or polyester) and non-high heel shoes; men wear suits, sports coats, a casual shirt (never a t-shirt and rarely a golf or short sleeve shirt), dark pants, dark shoes, a cloth coat (sometimes a windbreaker) and a hat or beret.
You will occasionally see young guys (never anyone over thirty) and young women wearing jeans -- the women's jeans are always fashionably torn on the knees or thighs -- never rhinestones on the back pockets. Again, don't know if it's Paris or just a "big city" thing -- just interesting.
Today was finally my day to get to visit the Musee de l'Orangerie -- had tried last week and found it closed on Tuesday -- turns out a lot of the museums are closed on Tuesdays. The building is in the Jardin des Tuileries complex and was built in the mid-1800's to house the King's orange trees over the winter -- they apparently would have them outside in planters during the other seasons and then bring them in so they wouldn't freeze. At some point in time they stopped bringing the trees in and the building went through a number of uses finally ending up as a repository for a large collection of post-modern art (1880's-1940's).
The first floor is taken up by Monet's "Water Lilies" -- a series of eight huge panels doing a variation on (you guessed it!) water lilies -- each panel is eight feet high by maybe thirty feet long -- displayed in two rooms on oval shaped walls -- four panels per room in a surround type display -- these were the rooms on the top floor where the orange trees were originally kept -- they're impressive for their size if nothing else!
From this floor you go down -- museums here tend to go down in floors beneath ground level instead of upwards -- what I'm coming to realize (by seeing so many paintings depicting early Paris) is that prior to the late 1800's, most Parisian buildings were only two to three stories high (probaly due to using wood framing techniques), so in keeping the original old buildings, they can't go up to gain space, so they burrow down to create floors below ground level.
The first underground floor is a cafe and gift shop. the next level houses the private collection containing works by Picasso, Renoir, Modigliani, Cezanne, Utrillo, etc.... I actually appreciated this collection more than the Monet's -- although much of it made me feel like fine art is lost on me -- I apparently like older schools of art and when you get into Impressionism, Cubist, Avant-garde, still-life -- which is most of what the Post Modern movement appears to be -- it does nothing for me. What is interesting is that in the late 1800's-early 1900's, the accepted art form changed into an almost anything goes frame of reference -- a bohemian view of life. This movement was apparently very interconnnected, the artists lived together, ate together, socialized together and it was fascinating that when I looked at many of their paintings of people in a room or street scenes, it was clear that many times, faces in the paintings weren't random people but rather the other artists in their group.
I was there about three hours, and I'm sure that someone who is serious about that period of art, could easily spend an entire day there appreciating the collection. The collection was originally the property of an art dealer who hung-out with the artists and who was included in many of the paintings.
From the museum, it was only a few Metro stops to the Left Bank (felt so appropriate after seeing this artwork) for lunch -- a custom made chicken and cheese crepe from the creparie I had been to last week -- then went wandering the streets and alleys -- sounds romantic but in actuality, most of the Left Bank today is a series of food places and souvenir shops -- there's still some of the original atmosphere left but not much -- kind of like the Height-Ashbury district in San Francisco -- now trendy restaurants and t-shirt shops. The streets still wind and are cobble-stoned and you occasionally find a book-store but the counter-culture "feeling" is pretty much a thing of the past.
Back at the apartment -- doing a laundry (still can't figure out how to work the dang washer -- I just keep pushing buttons until something happens), doing a little bit of cleaning and taking out the trash -- reality still lives here -- it's not all romantic!
Went out for a walk after writing the above to get ssome fresh air -- ended-up walking to the Place de la Bastille -- as they say in the tour books, it's the best known monument in Paris that doesn't exist anymore -- torn down after the Revolution. Now it's a rotary with a huge column and statue of the goddess "Liberty" in the center. Stumbled on to a large open air art show going on -- today was the last day and a few people were already packing up by the time I arrived but there were still probably a couple of hundred artists and book and old print dealers still set-up. Enjoyed it almost as much as I did the museum this morning -- a lot of talented people. Nothing in particular caught my attention or if it did, again it was too large to get back to the States -- but it was nice walking around -- the show stretched along both banks of the Seine for probably a quarter mile making for a nice ambience.
Stopped at a shop and got a bottle of wine, from a vineyard I hadn't tried before, for dinner tonight -- a Savignon Blanc -- not my style but keep reminding myself, I'm here to try new things -- and need to get to that 150 vineyard goal!!
