Les Impressionistes et les puces

Second entry time (I`d hold off until tomorrow, but then you`d all be facing an actual blog-novel and who wants that?), covering the Musée d`Orsay and today`s adventures. On y va...

After the morning at the Louvre, Max and I fortified ourselves at a wee café just off the beaten path (in other words, one that wasn`t stupidly overpriced) and plunged onwards into more great art. Once again our Museum Cards allowed us to skip the line and waltz right into the gallery feeling like vertitable V.I.Ps.

The Orsay`s collection is spread out inside a former train station, a location that somehow fits the eclectic crowd of objets d`art that fills the building`s walls. From miniscule daguerrotypes depicting solemn Victorians to strange Symbolist paintings that look almost too tacky to be living in a famous museum, the Orsay`s labyrinth of galleries tosses something different in the viewer`s face around every corner. The main hall makes the original purpose of the museum obvious - a glass ceiling letting in lovely natural light and the big clock now giving the time only to tourists and a group of statues that dot the huge floor. The rest of the major galleries reside on the second and fifth floors, twisting and turning and quite confusing in layout.

The second floor gave me a huge, glorious dose of Art Nouveau furniture and other assorted household objects along with the aforementioned weird Symbolist stuff that was entertaining, if not actually the kind of painting I like. The fifth floor was where the real magic is though, as Van Gogh, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Gaugin, Matisse, Monet, and a few other BIG name Impressionists (and Post-impressionists) were there on the walls. I rediscovered my love for Van Gogh`s gorgeous colours and free brushstrokes, and I wished I could stand in front of `La Nuit Ètoilée, Arles` or `Eugène Boch` for hours just absorbing the life present in those paintings. The Pointillism room also reminded me that I only really enjoy the style when the dot-images are rendered in crazy technicolour, like the paintings of Henri Edmond Cross, as the bright rainbow shades remove a certain rigidity born from the technical use of those millions of dots.

After a full half-day of art viewing, Max and I split up and explored the city a bit on our own. I didn`t see anything particularly noteworthy, just enjoyed the beautiful apartment buildings and pretended to be a real Parisian for a few hours. After a bit of a nap (we`d gotten up at 7:00), we had some dinner and walked up to Sacre Coeur. I had major Amélie flashbacks the whole walk up, and the golden evening light even made the city look a little like Jeunet`s version of Paris. Once we`d reached the top I turned around to see the whole city spread out under the setting sun and it was one of the most wonderful things I`ve ever seen.

This morning I`d made plans to go to the Saturday flea market (marchée des puces...or de puce, can`t recall), and so I set off to conquer the Métro all by my lonesome since Max wasn`t quite as excited about dusty antiques. I actually went to the market at the age of seven, and as with most places one revisits, it seemed much smaller this time around. Once I`d waded through a throng of men selling fake designer sunglasses and knockoff Prada bags, however, I still had fun looking at all the strange items at the stands (want a stuffed and mounted snarling badger? No? How about a slighty racist kid`s book from the 40s?). By the end of the visit I`d also managed to purchase an Art Deco pendant and some late 19th/early 20th century postcards, so it wound up being a perfect morning after all.

The next item on my day`s itinerary was another Métro ride across the city to the aquarium (also on my Museum Card - I`m intent on getting my money`s worth). The outside of the building in which the fish were housed was quite grand - an Art Deco façade entirely covered in colonial reliefs (by this I mean images of Africa that included both elephants, tribal natives and lots of white explorers in pith helmets) that were quite impressive. It was a bit of a surprise then, when I walked through the door, to be directed to the basement of the building and a smallish room of medium-sized tanks. The aquarium was pretty good despite its slightly budget appearance, as they had a varied selection of both tropical standards (clown fish, etc.) and some bizzare creatures like electric eels, elephant fish and the impossibly strange white unicorn fish (yes, really, it, unlike its namesake, exists).

I finished off the sightseeing portion of the day by wandering around Montmartre and enjoying the cute little shops on the Butte, which vary between chic clothing stores, boulangeries and places that specialize in antiques and curiosities like old printer`s letters and doll hands.

Quite a day today - it feels good to get all caught up here. Maybe next time it won`t take me almost two hours to update (excuse me as I fantasize about my North American keyboard that allows me to type fast).

À demain!