A Tale of Two Sculptors

Living abroad alternates wildly between "OH MY GOD.  This is all so amazing!!  Look, it's the Eiffel Tower!!!!  Look, it's the Louvre!!!  Oh my God, I am so lucky to be here!!!!!!" and, sometimes in the very next breath even, "What am I doing here?!  I can't understand anyone!!!  I am alone!!!!  I have no idea what I'm doing!!! I want to go hoooooooome."  The first sentiment is accompanied by giddily gallivanting about the city, the second is accompanied mostly by weeping.

Basically an equestrian monument.  But with a corpse.

When you find your time dominated by the latter, I find one of the best remedies is to go gallivanting about the city until the former feeling kicks back in.  After a few days of struggling with the language, the research, and all the rest of it, I therefore decided to get out for a bit.  I wandered down to Montparnasse, where I started my journey with the Montparnasse Cemetery.  Because, you know, when you need a lift, the best place to go is a graveyard.

The two best places to look at alot of public sculpture in one area are parks and cemeteries.  I've already gone to Paris' other great cemeteries--Père Lachaise and Montmartre--where Jay and I tracked down some works by Dalou, as well as other funerary sculptures and graves of noteworthy personages (In addition to being a great place to cheer up, apparently I think graveyards are also a great place to take a date.  What is wrong with me?)  Public monuments are often forced to be rather restrained--commissioners tend to be nervous about spending a lot of money on overly radical or creative works that might prove too offensive for a public place.  Funerary sculpture, however, tends to be much more creative (perhaps because the patron is already dead...?)  At any rate, many really great sculptors during the nineteenth century provided good and interesting works to cemeteries, which makes them a really interesting place for me.

Some of Degas' favorite things.

In addition to seeing a bunch of sculpture, it is indeed a bit of a thrill to go and track down the graves of famous people, which for me primarily means artists.  When Jay and I wandered through the Montmartre Cemetery, I jokingly told him to keep an eye out for the grave of Edgar Degas, who I knew was buried there, but wasn't willing to track down that particular afternoon.  When Jay did find Degas' grave, I was so overwhelmed by glee that I was inspired to do as several wellwishers did before me, which was to leave him a thank you note.  Degas was actually kind of a misanthropic jackass who would probably be more horrified by the painful artistic incompetencies of my note rather than touched by its sentiment.  However, Degas was a remarkably brilliant artist, and as such, I will forgive him for having such a prickly personality.  I must admit that I am terribly inconsistent with this type of judgement, as I am more than ready to condemn Paul Gauguin for his character flaws, but that is mostly because I can't stand his painting.

As it happens,  Jules Dalou was actually a pretty good guy, and in addition to liking his art quite a bit (not a necessary corollary for writing a dissertation about someone) I actually have a good deal of fondness for him (even less a corollary for writing a dissertation about someone).  And that is the primary reason I trekked down to Montparnasse--to go visit the grave of Jules Dalou.

Who left the flowers?!  Ancestor?  Fan?  My rival Dalou scholar?!?

Dalou's bust of his daughter.

By the time of his death, Dalou was no longer particularly famous, had never been particularly wealthy, and was not the sort of man to choose a grandiose tomb for himself.  He is buried, as stated on the tomb, with his wife Irma, and his daughter Georgette.  When Dalou died, some years after his wife, he bequeathed his works in such a way that their sales would provide for the care of his daughter, whose severe mental handicap precluded her from ever living by herself or marrying.  He also made a number of stipulations for her care--that she should have a private room and her own spending money--extravagant measures at that time for someone with Georgette's condition.  Until this time, Dalou had done little to market the bronze casts of his smaller, more domestic works, preferring instead to focus his attention on large public monuments.  The sculptor only accepted works celebrating men or ideas that he admired, sometimes even refusing payment for work on monuments that particularly inspired him.  Dalou's own political ideals forced him into exile.  After the fall of the Commune, Dalou spent nine years in England, where he taught sculpture, mostly through gesture as he only spoke French, to a horde of young English artists who benefited greatly by having a superbly trained French sculptor in their midst.  When Dalou returned to France, he dedicated himself to monuments to the French republic, and ideals of liberté, egalité, and fraternité--particularly for the working-class laborers from which he came.  Basically, when it comes down to it, old Jules seems like he must have been a pretty decent guy.  At least as good, if not better, than the grands hommes (great men) he spent his life commemorating.

On my way to the Montparnasse Cemetery to see Dalou's final resting place, I walked by a statue of a grand homme by another grand homme--Dalou's friend and rival Auguste Rodin. 

Rodin's Monument to Balzac.  This particular cast is on Boulevard Raspail,

My absolute favorite way to explain my dissertation is through the following dialogue:

Vaguely interested party:  "What are you writing your dissertation on?"
Me:  "Do you know who Rodin is?  He did The Thinker, The Kiss. . . "
Rapt and attentive listener:  "OH YEAH!"
Me:  "Well, I'm not writing on him.  I'm writing about the other guy.  The second most famous sculptor in France at the end of the nineteenth century."
No longer at all rapt and completely inattentive listener:  "Oh."

Actually, I almost chose to write my dissertation on Rodin.  I wrote my very first sculpture paper on some early artistic photography of Rodin's sculpture.  I then wrote one of my master's theses on Rodin's Balzac.  I was well on my way to writing the whole damn thing on Rodin when my advisor (thankfully) talked me into Dalou, primarily on the strength of his Triumph to the Republic. 

I remain interested to see Rodin's works, as they remind me of my first serious and engaged encounter with sculpture.  Numerous bronze casts of the Balzac exist, so I've actually seen this work a couple of times--the MOMA in New York, the Rodin Museum in Paris, various smaller casts elsewhere.  I was particularly pleased to see this Balzac though, because it is relatively rare to see Rodin's works actually installed as public monuments.  It isn't that Rodin didn't make public monuments, it is just that they were most often rejected.  This work created an awful scandal when it was first exhibited as a plaster cast in 1898, so Rodin hid it in his garden.  Only years after the artist's death did Paris put the much-maligned work in a public place.

Often, it is difficult to wrap our brains and eyes around why people once found famously scandalous works offensive.  But even for me now, there is something distinctly odd about seeing one of Rodin's works plopped into the middle of the street.  His works seem to me too private, too expressively and almost histrionically emotional that setting one out in a public square feels like the sculptural equivalent of taking all your clothes off and running into the street screaming hysterically.

There is a nice bit, in an article by Albert Elsen about Rodin, where he says something along the lines of Rodin's gestures not coming from nature.  I always found the dramatic, and sometimes rather overdone, otherworldliness of early photographs of Rodin's work to be the best setting for his work--divorced from nature, the real world, and instead placed into a purely expressive and evocative aesthetic space that seems to unfold more from the sculpture itself, rather than just acting as background.

Edward Steichen's tarted up artsy photograph of the Balzac.

I can't imagine a photographer effectively giving this treatment to a Dalou work, and that is a good part of what I like about him.  Dalou's works are too grounded, too connected with the real space in which they exist, and to the real ideologies and people they represent.  Dalou's sculptures would lose some of their meaning if they were stuck out in a garden someplace for some photographer to take some fancy photos of. 

Me and 42 tons of bronze.

Dalou's Triumph of the Republic is in the Place de la Nation, a neighborhood that was deeply working-class when the sculpture was erected, and still not the nicest place to visit in Paris today.  The sculpture is covered in graffiti, littered with broken glass and confetti, and usually surrounded by people lounging, drinking, and making out.  The first time I was there, a guy repeatedly kept hitting on me, and the second time I was there, a guy insisted on making lewd comments about some putti private parts.

Here's the thing though.  The sculpture needs people around it.  And more than that, it can't help but draw people to it, even if they are just drinking and screwing around, rather than being inspired to democratic and patriotic ideals, or at least doing some insightful art criticism and interpretation.  Jules Dalou, mostly because he was that nice and idealistic guy, really believed that he was making sculptures that did something important for people--that brought them together and helped them think great thoughts.  Now, that is undoubtedly a whole bunch of idealistic bullshit, but I can't help but think it is pretty nice anyway.  And that is why I'm kinda glad to be studying the guy.

Some Parc Monceau, some Colonne Vendôme

Yesterday did not get off to an auspicious start.  After searching fruitlessly for one last Dalou sculpture, I got tired of both finding nothing and getting rained on, so I came home to try to refine a more precise location.  Turns out, within the past several years, the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers has moved the sculpture to a different location.  Not only that, it has been moved to a Parisian suburb known less for fine art, and more for its unusually high crime.  Le sigh.

Not ready to tackle a crime-ridden Parisian banlieu (suburb) quite yet, I took the metro out to see a sculpture just east of the Arc de Triomphe. From the moment I walked up from the metro and saw the precise work I was looking for, my day took a serious turn for the better.  Gustave Doré's Monument to Alexander Dumas is one of my favorites, not least because a fantastically dashing figure of D'Artagnan is perched on the back.

Like Puss in Boots, without the mice necklace.

 By this point, I have developed a certain routine for photographing monuments, in order to ensure I don't miss anything.  I circle the work a couple of times, taking numerous photos from each angle (n, ne, e. etc. etc.), and then work increasingly closer to the monument so that I get both overall and detail shots of the work.  It must look just different enough from normal tourist behavior to elicit notice, because numerous strangers have stopped to talk to me about the sculptures.  When Jay and I came across the Waldeck-Rousseau in the Tuileries, a man there assured me the work was Socialist because it included a figure of a laborer (he was not too far from the truth).  Yesterday, as I was looking at another sculpture in the Place du Général Catroux, a guy from Liberia sporting some truly magnificent dreadlocks stopped me to ask why I thought the sculpture was good.  This prompted a long conversation about art and impermanence in both France and Africa, conducted partly in French, partly in English.  He said he missed his home, but couldn't go back, because he has a French woman now, so he can't leave.  I told him I have an American man, so I can't stay. 

After telling my new Liberian friend to check out the sculpture with D'Artagnan on it, I made the short walk to nearby Parc Monceau.  I love Parisian parks in general, but this one might have jumped to the top of the list.  It has tons of sculpture, a rose garden, a carousel, a stand selling crepes and ice cream, a children's playground (with its own special mini bathroom), space for rollerblading, a loud and strange prayer group, random ruined arches, a weird pyramidal building of some sort, and even ponies.

Ponies, from left to right:  Pierre, Jean-Claude, and Bill.

 I sat and ate a nutella crepe while watching the literary-themed carousel take a few turns.  My vote for "best carousel in Paris" is now torn between this carousel that featured Le Petit Prince's airplane and a submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the carousel in Jardin de Plantes which is populated by prehistoric creatures.  The sculpture to the left of the carousel in the photo was just the first of many relevant works inhabiting the park--some of which I knew about, but several that were pleasant surprises.  While checking them out, I experienced some revelatory thoughts that (fingers crossed) I hope are semi-new, and will provide some fodder for the dissertation.  Time will tell.

Sculpture to left, submarine to right.

After exhausting the sculptural possibilities of the Parc Monceau, I made the rather long and exhausting walk home.  I took a side route to see the Vendôme Column, which is one of those enormous things that I have managed to come within blocks of numerous times over the course of the past several weeks, without ever actually seeing.  It is pretty nice, and you can buy a Rolex there.

Napoleon was very short, his column is very big. Insert joke here.

As you might have guessed from the last paragraph the Vendôme Column is in a neighborhood that might be called "ritzy" or perhaps "obscenely out of my league."  The Vendôme is downtown, by the Louvre and the Madeleine, where luxury stores are lined up one after each other.  I foolishly stopped in a fabulous little shop that had nothing but things for one's hair.  I picked up a hair stick, found it was 45 euros, then stopped touching things.  As this shop was next door to a place that sells furs, I shouldn't have been surprised.  My favorite example of Parisian shopping extravagance must be this:

The "slumming it" of Parisian shopping.

Please note two facts about this photograph.  1)  The Soldes feature several progressively deeper markdowns so this is the third, deeply discounted final sale price and 2) With the current conversion rate, 50 euros = $71.83.  Hurry up!!!!  Buy a stack of these super-sale t-shirts for just $71.83 a piece!  Also--this shop is obviously on the low end, as it features not just stacks of shirts (as opposed to one shirt a fixture, luxuriantly spaced out across the floor) but also a hastily printed out sale sign.  And ... 50 euros for a t-shirt???  What. a. steal.

Best. Purchase. Ever.

I now own a Sarah Connor jacket.  SCORE.

For the short time that Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles were on tv, I was majorly hooked.  Not only did it feature some seriously awesome characters, not only did it have a riveting plot that kept me compulsively coming back every week, not only did it have logic-bending approaches to time, space, and narrative, not only did it have Summer Glau from Firefly, but it also had really, really great jackets.

How I coveted a Sarah Connor jacket.  Waist-length, form-fitting, dark-colored, and with many pockets and zippers (you know, to keep your cell phone, house keys, handgun, ammo, bits of futuristic technology, etc. etc.). 

I'm not much of a shopper, and I don't earn alot of money, so I never got around to purchasing my pre-apocalyptic, ass-kicking jacket.

Until now.  Because, fortunately, the jacket I have described is pretty popular in Paris, even in July.  Thanks to the Soldes (the biannual sales), the previously unobtainable jacket has now been obtained.

My awesome new jacket, as it turns out, is ideal for shooting terminators, protecting your messianic son, preserving hope for humankind in an apocalyptic future, and walking around Paris eating crepes, drinking wine, and looking at art.

Renoir, if you don't start making better art, I will blow. you. away.

Super Bon Bon

Oh yeah.  And I also saw the Arc de Triomphe today.

Little-known Napoleon quote: "Move aside, and let the man go through."

It's big, it's bad, it's Napoleonic.  Tourists like to take pictures of themselves doing odd things in front of it.   There are alot of things I could tell you about it.  Art historical things, like how Napoleon commissioned it, but then Waterloo happened, and then a whole bunch of political stuff went down, and then sculptors of varying quality put some reliefs on it (Please note.  One relief is clearly superior.  Correct answer is the one you see on the right in the picture above.  It is by François Rude, and it is pretty good.  Should you ever be quizzed on which relief is best, please say that one, because otherwise, I will judge you.)  I could tell you some general things, like about how nice the view is when you come down the Champs Elysées, or how the Tour de France ends here.  I could talk about its historical predecessors (the Romans, of course) or about how, like everything else in Paris, it is way bigger in person than you think it is.  I could tell you some personal things about it, like how I remember seeing it on my first trip to Paris with my college friend Karen or about how Jay and I plotted a run that would take him past the Madeleine, the Opéra, the Vendôme Column, and finally, all Roman-Emperor-style to the Arc de Triomphe before running back home again.

But actually, what I want to talk about is how when you are looking at the Arc de Triomphe, if you turn around, you see this:

Backyard bonbon.

What the hell is this??  Why is there what looks to be a giant sculpture of candy in somebody's backyard???

Further investigation warrants this question:  Why the hell does the Qatar Embassy have a giant sculpture of candy in its backyard?!?!

Should you actually want the answer, go here.  The answer is actually pretty cool.  Should you want to continue living with the mystery, that is fine.  Just be sure that before you get interrogated about the best relief on the Arc de Triomphe, you turn around and check out the bonbon.

p.s. I would like some credit for avoiding another relief pun.  Thanks.

p.p.s.  All credit should be rescinded for my taking both my title and two photo captions from 1996.

Oh what a relief it is

Today I made a four-mile jaunt down to see a Dalou work that has a decent amount of both personal and professional significance for me--his Monument to Alphand of 1899, on Avenue Foch.  I have some particular fondness for it, as it took me to Chicago twice in order to present a paper on it.  Not only did I have a great time in Chicago, first with Jack, then by myself, but presenting at the Art Institute of Chicago is a rare moment in my art historical career that I actually have a bit of pride about.

Monument to Alphand:  Totally less boring in person.

I am fairly convinced that this was a particularly important monument for Dalou, in that I believe it epitomizes what he was trying to do with monumental sculpture.  As such, this work counts pretty emphatically in my dissertation.  For the dissertation to work, I really need this sculpture to do a lot for me, in terms of how it functions stylistically, and how it relates to Dalou's other work, and to that of his contemporaries.  Fortunately, when I saw it, I bought my own thoughts about it.  This is always a relief when you see a sculpture you've only thought about and studied, but never actually seen [Including my title, this is my second subtle and bad pun on the word "relief."  See that wall of hard to see marble stuff?  That's relief sculpture, and, ummm, yeah.  It is a sculpture joke.  Not funny.  Ok.  Won't you be relieved when I stop making them?  ha ha. . .  Yeah.  Never mind.).  At any rate, I like it quite a bit more than I thought I would, and am actually more convinced of its merit and importance in terms of turn-of-the-century public sculpture than ever.  Hip hip hooray.

Opéra Garnier.  Gilt. House.

As always, my trip to the Alphand involved the requisite number of distractions and side trips.  As I've been here for a couple of weeks now, I've become more accustomed to things within a certain radius around me, so my trips are somewhat condensed and more purposeful.  Opéra Garnier?  Seen it, moving on.  This is only partially true.  There are still some things, the Opéra an excellent case in point, that I am still pretty blown away every time I see them.  However, there comes a point where you can't gawk at everything every time you see it, because Paris is simply so full of stuff that you otherwise couldn't go anywhere without it taking 6 hours (it's happened) or your brain exploding.  It is no wonder the Parisians no longer see their own city, because otherwise they wouldn't get anything done.  It is still weird, at times, though, that modern life happens around monuments so grand, and rich, and historically deep.  The Opéra was built during the French Second Empire, a time of high glamor and opulence (putting giant gilt things on top of your buildings is always good indication of that).  And yet, people obviously live normal, 21st century lives around this thing.  It is a popular place for street performers and people to hang out in front of, so in order to better reproduce my experience at the Opéra today, you should really be listening to this.  Kinda weird, right?
 

I am even less great at Medieval art than I am at Contemporary Art, and I occasionally have an equally bad (or worse) attitude about it.  I never get tired of looking at church architecture though, and because I'm not knowledgeable about Parisian medieval architecture, I am consistently stumbling into great churches that are surprises to me.  St. Augustin might be my favorite surprise church (that I should have known about, but didn't).  Both exterior and interior were really beautiful, and it had an absolutely gorgeous dome suspended over a row of stained glass windows.  And it had an equestrian of Joan of Arc out front.

St. Augustin and Ste. Jean.

There is nothing, however, like a bad sculpture to help you realize what good sculpture looks like.  I find that the characteristic of "ass-kicking" or perhaps "badass-ness" are both useful litmus tests for the quality of equestrians, and the Joan of Arc in the Place St. Augustin gets soundly trounced by Frémiet's in the Place des Pyramides in this regard.  Why, oh why, Paul Dubois, did you stick Joan onto that horse as if she was a He-Man action figure unsuccessfully riding a My Little Pony?  You are fired.

My big sister could take on both Joans.  At the same time.

Sometimes it is hard reconciling what you know as a historian with what you feel as a human being.  Point in fact:  I know that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States, and that various casts of her exist in various locations throughout the city of Paris.  But damn is it weird every time.  The Statue of Liberty was actually a product of the late nineteenth century, and she is an incredibly interesting counterpoint to Dalou's figure of the Republic atop his Triumph.  My advisor, during one of my PhD qualifying exams no less, asked for comparative material for the Dalou Republic figure, and it sure was awhile before it occurred to me:  OH! You mean the colossal statue on an island off the coast of my own damn country.  Right.  Unfortunately it is hard to remember that in art history, the State of Liberty does not equal a quality tourist attraction and symbol of American democracy but rather an example of a classicizing liberty figure borrowing from the same iconographic tradition as Dalou's figure of the Republic.  And sometimes you run across her when you are walking around Paris.

Le Bon, le mal, et le moche

In addition to researching, and in addition to sight-seeing and wandering around like a slack-jawed tourist (in researching I mostly sit around like a slack-jawed moron), being in Paris has also included the matter-of-fact necessities of just living in a new place. In these first couple of weeks of living the Parisian life, I have found that many things are quite great (to either my expectation or surprise), while others are surprisingly disappointing, bad, or just strange.  So here, for your perusal, are some culinary ouis and nons of my Parisian life so far.

Oui

Bread

The mere thought of eating bread in America again fills me with dread.  It is actually true that the Parisians walk around carrying baguettes of bread, sometimes with the top nibbled off, because sometimes it is so warm and inviting when you get it, that you can't help but have a little snack.  I have my choice of a number of boulangeries within 5 minutes of my apartment and not only do they sell bread, but also marvelous little pastries as well.   It is great, because not only can I say "une baguette, s'il vous plaît" with the best of them, but then you get to go home and eat some baguette.  It is great all around.

Me and my baguette, being all Parisienne.

Wine

There is a chance I am drinking way too much wine.  But hey, when you are alone and researching, and your only companions are a blog, some French tv, and a bottle of wine, you start getting pretty cozy with the bottle of wine.   Though my unrefined palate (see below) struggles with differentiating between cheap and expensive bottles of wine, I am still pretty sure you can get a good bottle of wine here for less than a couple of euros.  And that is pretty great.

Butter

Hello my name is Jen and I love French butter.  Two factors are at play here.  1) French butter is truly better than American butter.  That is a fact.  Did you know that the French have different types of butter?  And that one of these butters has bits of salt in it?  AMAZING!!   2) In America, being all health conscious and such, I don't really eat butter.  In France, I tend to do as the French do, and therefore have picked up a number of French habits, such as butter-eating.  In addition, walking numerous miles a day means that I am burning up extraordinary amounts of calories.  As a result, I am actually losing weight while my diet consists primarily of wine, butter, and bread.  Should I come back to Columbus and gain 50 pounds, it will be because I have no doubt convinced myself that butter is a diet food.

Pizza

I don't know what it is, but French pizza is particularly delicious, once you can work past the cultural barriers to order it.  Jay and I wanted to stay in one night, but still wanted to experience some French restaurant culture, so we decided to find some pizza à emporter (carry out).  Thankfully, one of the waitresses there took pity on my paltry French, and worked us through the procedure in English.  Pizza (at least at this particular establishment) is ordered by weight, rather than slices.  We might have stood there all night asking for a couple of slices of pizza, while the waitress kept asking us in frustration to just tell us how much pizza we wanted.  Next time, I will walk in confidently, and order a couple hundred grams of pizza.  Pas de problem.

Non

Cheese

Allow me to clarify.  It is not that French cheese is bad (it is absolutely not), but rather that as an uninformed consumer, going to the fromagerie is dangerous business.  Prior to coming to Paris, I would have believed my palate able to withstand the strongest of tastes.  After all, I live on black coffee and was one of the primary instigators (you know who you are [Brady]) of the infamous Christmas Mushroom Incident.  Nope.  I am a cheese wuss.  I really wish I could adore cheese that smells vaguely (or entirely) of bodily excrement, but that cultured I am not.

Beer

The French are not stupid.  They put all their energies in some places (bread, wine, cheese, etc.) and have left the rest to outsourcing.  Why brew beer when the Belgians, Dutch, and Germans are so good at it?  A pression (draft beer) at the café after a hot Parisian day is an incredible delight, but only when the beer isn't French.

Coffee

First of all, anybody who has worked at a coffee shop for numerous months is going to have some serious trouble adapting to the civilian lifestyle.  What do you mean I don't have access to unlimited espresso every day????  Coffee at a café in France is alright, but those euros add up.  When you can buy a decent bottle of wine (see above) for around the same price as a coffee (i.e. an espresso), you start watching your café euros fairly carefully.  At home, you can make Nescafe or drip coffee.  Despite the name "French" press, I do not actually have one, so I have been making my drip coffee with a coffee pot and some Commerce Equitable (Far Trade) coffee.  I don't know what it is (but I know it isn't me), but that coffee just ain't good.  Maybe it is the water, maybe it is the lack of freshly ground beans, but it just isn't not working for me.  Thus--I drink mostly Nescafe every day.  I work at a Fair Trade Coffee Shop and I am drinking instant coffee every day.  That is some screwed up merde right there, mes amis.  When I get home, I am going to hit Global Gallery Coffee Shop so fast it will make your head spin.

Correction

I realized I wrote an entire post about my boyfriend visiting me in Paris, la Cité d'Amour, and failed to include even a single picture of the two of us together.  Please excuse me--my fervor over lambs, pudding, and Delacroix's hair distracted me.  Here ya go.

Avec le petit ami

The cutest thing carved in marble you will ever see.

Coming back onto the grid after a two-week sojourn while the boy visited.  We had a lovely time, though now the transition back to work and solitude after two weeks of fun and companionship is a bit tough.  Not, however, that it was all fun and games while he was here.  Our Parisian wanderings took into account various public sculptures--both by Dalou and others--that I need to see while I'm here.   As it turned out, we maxed out early, because on our first night's walk, to the Eiffel Tower, by way of the Tuileries, we saw easily the best public sculpture ever.  Ok, probably not the best, technically, but I do love this thing.  Gabriel Pech's Monument to Perrault ranked high on my list of most-anticipated sculptures in Paris less because of its relevance to my work (though it actually is, promise) but mostly because it is so damn cute.  Charles Perrault wrote, among other things, the story of Puss in Boots, so his monument in the children's park of the Tuileries features--yes--a cat wearing boots.  I spent no little amount of time pointing out to Jay the most salient features of the monument, which include:  fabulous knee-high boots, hat with a giant feather, billowing cape, a mouse hanging from his belt, and a necklace made of mice.  Sadly, after this, monuments of 19th-century men without a tail, whiskers, or a mice-necklace are going to look fairly prosaic.  One possible exception is Dalou's Triumph of the Republic, which I like to think can be impressive without a cat wearing boots, especially because it does feature two absolutely enormous lions instead.

Boots don't come in their size.

There are a number of benefits to studying public sculpture, not the least of which is that when your boyfriend comes to visit, you can wander around Paris still looking at things, rather than being locked up in a library.  The other advantage, of course, is that public sculpture is climbable.  Jay's presence was fortuitous for this photo, as not only did I need someone to take the picture for me, but I also needed the assurance of having someone to fall on in case I misstepped while clamoring up on top of the lion.

This way to the bog!

After looking at piles of sculpture in Paris, we then went to the land of bad art:  the British Isles.  Studying French art, I have inherited a number of prejudices about the English--namely about the quality of their art and their food.  Despite both of these prejudices playing out to some extent, we had a lovely time--especially because we were mostly in Wales--thereby bypassing the English and their bad art.  Or at least, I had a lovely time--Jay ran through fields of sheep, snorkled in a bog, and biked up and down Welsh mountains.  During this time, I drank tea. 

I also kept an eye out for lambs nursing.  Yes.  You read that right.  Lambs nursing.  I promise you that this is, in fact, the cutest thing you will ever see.  If you take a carved marble Puss in Boots, put it in a cute-ometer, amplify its cuteness by 10000000x, have Anne bloody Geddes photograph it with some babies dressed as flowers and vegetables, and then put on your cute glasses to look at it, you might come close to the cuteness of lambs nursing.  I am actually not one to be swayed by cuteness (except in marble), but damn if lambs nursing didn't make me squeal with joy.  They actually spin their tails with glee.  They SPIN THEIR TAILS.  Seriously.    

The English are coming!!  With bad art!!

When Jay was not jogging, bogging, or biking, he was defending us from the English.  A trip to Powys Castle in Welshpool proved neither dank, dark, drafty, or castle-y enough, so we took a trip to Cardiff Castle, which did indeed turn out to be quite castle-y.  Whereas Powys Castle had Romney portraits, Baroque gardens, and other renovations purposely intended to reduce its castle-y parts, Cardiff Castle had crenelations, a trebuchet, and children practicing archery skills in the banquet hall.  Much better.  In Cardiff, we also sampled a Welsh breakfast.  This consists of many types of meat, boiled seaweed, egg, toast, brown sauce, and something deceptively called "black pudding."  While the "black" should have been an important hint, it is very deceptive to call anything pudding that has, as one of its primary ingredients, blood.  That is screwed up.  Should anyone ever give you black pudding, my advice to you is to cover it in brown sauce and not ask questions.  Later in the day, I gorged myself on sticky toffee pudding covered with English custard in order to compensate for starting my day with eating blood.  As I learned the hard way, custard-covered sticky toffee pudding is quite delicious, but incredibly bad pre-panicked-run-for-the-train food.

We did catch our train, and celebrated our return to Paris by experiencing a number of Paris' most revered cultural institutions:  the Jardin du Luxembourg, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, and the cheese-covered hot dog.  While including the cheese-covered hot dog on this list might appear as if I am being purposely comedic--don't be fooled.  The French hot dog is covered with a truly monumental amount of cheese. 

Le hot dog fromage.

Despite the fact that (or more likely because) I am a trained professional, my personalized tour of the Louvre consisted less of art historical interpretations, and more of subjective judgements and random facts.  For example, I derive great glee out of pointing out the back of Delacroix's famously lustrous head of hair in Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.

Me and Delacroix rocking our hair.  Please note my Morgana-inspired ponytail.

In fact, I was so excited that I almost threw myself at the painting, which no doubt would have prompted a lifelong ban from all Parisian museums.

Ne touchez pas!!

Jay, to his credit, was able to withstand a whole trip to the most famous museum in the world with his art historian girlfriend.  For that, he deserves to be applauded.  Or better yet, get a high five.

"Nice job on the bog snorkle, dude. "

That would have been a great ending shot, but I did spend several days in the Welsh countryside, so . . . Mom, this is for you.

Flowers with magnificent backdrop of lush Welsh landscape.  Cheers.

Pompi-doh

I struggle with contemporary art.  I have a certain sympathy for folks who roll their eyes and ask what the hell it all means, because despite being a couple hundred of pages away from a dissertation in art history, I sometimes find myself wondering the same thing.  I've taken classes, I've read the books, and sure, I more or less get it, but when it comes down to it, it just doesn't quite do it for me.  I'm sorry Contemporary Art--it's not you, it's me.

I often go to contemporary art museums with this expression.

The most infamous example of my distaste occurred a couple of years ago when Jackie, Becca, Brady and I went to New York to visit my college friend Josephine, and hang out in the city.  On the day of the even more infamous puking incident, Bec and I decided to go to the Guggenheim while Brady stayed at my friend's apartment to empty his stomach of all its contents.  To my surprise, Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle had completely overtaken the museum.  Becca says that she has never seen me fly through a museum with such rapidity and distaste.  I vaguely remember a river of warm vaseline, and the rest, thankfully has been more or less stricken from my memory.  I still don't know who had the most appalling day:  me or Brady.

Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Le Chat.

This is all back story for today's museum trip to the Centre Pompidou, home to the largest modern art collection in Europe.  Many Parisian museums are free the first Sunday of the month, so I chose the Pompidou, as it is on the art historical to do list, and I did not think the crowds would enrage me as they would if I went to the d'Orsay.  While I did not wander the Pompidou with distaste, I admit I walked through it with a certain disinterest and subsequent speed.  Picasso?  Seen it!  Moving on.  My favorite piece of the day was probably a charming little relief by Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp's less famous brother, whom I have a lot of fondness for.  His early death, of typhoid fever in WWI, precluded him from having a large body of work, so I'm always pleased to come across his stuff.

Brancusi Atelier.

I very much enjoyed the recreation of Constantin Brancusi's atelier (studio), which is located in a small structure outside the Pompidou itself.  The early 20th-century sculptor had a certain mania for how his works should be displayed, so he bequeathed the works in his studio to France, on the condition that they redisplay them in the manner in which he left them.

The famous escalator runs up the side of the building in a zigzagging glass tube.

Easily the best part of today's visit, however, was riding the escalator up the side of the building.  As you ascend upwards, your vision is occluded by the height of the surrounding buildings, until you move past the fifth floor and the Parisian cityscape emerges.  This proved so fun actually, that I spent the majority of my visit not looking at art, but rather riding the elevator up and down.

Rare photo of me courtesy of fellow tourist.

Did you just call it the Con?

Dude--I went to the Con.  The Comic-Con that is.

Comic-Con Paris: L'évènement Geek de l'année.

For the record, I went because my sisters insisted--Nicole outright threatened to disown me if I didn't go.  Off the record--ok, it's the Comic-Con, it's in Paris, there were still tickets . . . . why not?  I've been overdosing on high art since I got here, so why not some art of a different color?  Had there been a 19th-century Comic-Con, I am certain Gustave Courbet would have been there, and he would have been dressed as a Jedi.  Now I am wishing this was the case, so that way we could have the self-portrait "Courbet as Jedi" hanging at the d'Orsay (would that I had the PhotoShop skills...).

I don't often take the Metro, so when I do, I double and triple check to make sure that I am hopping on the train heading in the right direction.  This morning, there was no need, as I was sure that the train at the platform populated by people brandishing swords, shields, wigs, and mushroom hats was going my way.  After a near-getting-crushed-and/or-trampled incident, I ended up standing in the packed train next to a furtive, antsy little dude who jumped up from his seat at every stop, as if he was about to get off.  As I hovered vulture-like over his seat, I grew to hate him with an unrelenting, unmitigated fury.  He got off at the Con.  Dude--when the train empties and all the guys wielding katanas get off--you know it's your stop.  Chill.

One of many queues.

 
There is a lot of waiting in lines at the Con.  People wait to buy tickets, they wait to get into the building, they wait again to get further into the building, they wait to for the chance to find out if they can wait again to get autographs, they wait for food, for the bathrooms, to play games, to take pictures, etc. etc. etc.  As I was waiting to find out that I would not be able to wait again for some autographs (le sigh),  I passed the time by checking out what constitutes much of the enjoyment of the Con--the attendees themselves who take the idea of "dressing for the occasion" to spectacular levels.  I felt a bit out of place, actually, as I came to Paris unprepared to dress for the Con.  I should have, at least, put on some cat ears.  As it turns out, girls can wear cat ears with anything and it constitutes dressing up.  I am now convinced that one should always travel with cat ears lest you unsuspectingly have a Con to attend.  Do I have my passport?  Check.  Contact lenses?  Check.  Cat ears?  Check.  Allons-y!

Reno!!  From FF7!!!!!!!

Nicole pointed out that the Con represented the perfect situation to dress as Quistis Trepe.  I must admit I was a bit disappointed to let the opportunity pass me by, as I bear more than a passing resemblance to the Final Fantasy VIII character.  Quistis is the perfect choice, because not only is she my digital doppelganger (digiganger? no? ok.), but she also represents my only plausible connection to the world of the Con--Final Fantasy.  I sufficiently geeked out at the Square Enix booth, and was (almost) tempted to leave my queue so I could grab a picture of the guy on the right.  That's all the cred I got.

Square Enix was technically not located at the Con, but rather at the Japan Expo.  While Comic-Con Paris is only in its third year, the Japan Expo has a longer history--reflecting, it seems, a more entrenched French affection for manga and anime.  Wandering seamlessly between the two areas meant that I could barely differentiate from the two.   Brighter colors and absolutely no elbow room signified the Japan Expo, whereas slightly more elbow room and a preponderance of Jedi meant you were back at the Con.   I was always happy to see the Jedi--my lack of current pop culture means that I was most excited for the old favorites.
 

Of course there is still sculpture in this post.

The Legend of Zelda, for example, turns 25 this year (!), so the Con had a great little exhibit celebrating every incarnation of Zelda in the past quarter-century.  There is, of course, no better way to celebrate your twenty-fifth birthday than by having an equestrian sculpture made of yourself.

The main draw for the Con though, and why my family insisted on my attendance, was actually not the old favorites, but rather Merlin. We've all fallen in love with the show, so it was expected that I should check out the Merlin stars appearing at the Con, snap some blurry pictures, ideally steal an article of clothing, and report back.  Without further ado, I give you:

Merlin.

Morgan James as Merlin.  Very adorable and very shy.  In real life, his ears are almost close to normal size.

Morgana.

Katie McGrath as Morgana.  Beautiful, bubbly, and can rock a ponytail like nobody's business.

Arthur.

Bradley James as Arthur.  Yes--just as hot in real life.  And you can cut silk scarves on his cheekbones.


My favorite quote came courtesy of Bradley James, in discussing his character's growth in Season 3:  "Merlin's magic, Morgana's evilness.  Arthur's oblivious to all of it.  Makes life much easier."  During the panel, Morgana was chatty, vivacious and charming while Merlin, hidden under a baseball cap, was shy and reticent--preferring to speak little and let his co-stars field most of the questions.  Arthur has perfected the stern, serious stare--often peering out into the audience as if he is focusing on maintaining the appropriate level of chisel for the jaw. 

I am the once and future king.

At one point, Arthur looked out into the audience and noticed a girl wearing, I kid you not, cat ears.  "I like the ears," he says, "very nice."  Frak me.  I knew I should have packed the cat ears.

No Really

Point of fact:  I have actually been working.  

My dissertation on Jules Dalou focuses predominately on his public works, sculptures found in parks, squares, and along city streets.  These sculptures, often large and commissioned by the public or the state, usually commemorate something or another--most often a significant person in French history, but sometimes an idea.  In addition to Dalou, many other sculptors of the Third Republic contributed a plethora of monuments to the public spaces of Paris.  This is all just a long-winded way of saying that walking around the city is also research.

So here is just a sprinkling of some of the important stuff (academically speaking) that I’ve tracked down so far.

Salle de Dalou, Petit Palais.

I have yet to track down Dalou's public monuments (that task is reserved for the next two weeks), so I have begun with looking at other various types of sculpture Dalou has done.  The most important "indoor" find is without doubt the Petit Palais.  The Petit Palais houses the largest collection of Dalou's works, though only a small selection is ever on display at once.  In addition to the room shown here, the Petit Palais also has a really interesting study for Dalou's Triumph of the Republic, which I visited my first night in Paris during the Fête de la Musique.

Pont Alexandre III.

Not far from the Petit Palais, the Pont Alexandre III spans the Seine with enormous stone monumentality and gilded gold glamor.  Dalou himself contributed to the bridge with four colossal stone lions, accompanied by the chubby children and vegetal still-lives typical of the sculptor's oeuvre.

I am quite fond of these lions--they possess a kind of Baroque grandeur, infused with a 19th-century artist's eye for naturalism.  While I would have to bet on a Barye-lion in a fight, I think the Dalou-lion is probably too dignified to stoop to cat-fighting, so happily I can avoid picking favorites.

Blanqui, Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Dalou also contributed two tombs to the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery (most famously known as the final resting place of Jim Morrison).  More on them (and probably Jim Morrison) later.

Frémiet, Joan of Arc, Places des Pyramides.

In many ways a counterpoint the revolutionary and republican works of Dalou, Frémiet's shining monument to Joan of Arc is royalist, reactionary, and catholic.  While Third Republic radicals were hanging out at Dalou's Triumph of the Republic, royalists went to go hang flowers on Joan.

Auguste Paris, Monument to Dantan, by the Odéon, Blvd. St. Germain.

If the Joan of Arc is Dalou's opposite, then the Dantan would be his compatriot.  When I saw this work, protesters chanted vociferously at its feet.  Despite the fact that this makes photographing this sculpture for research purposes quite impossible, it is ideologically the best way to view this sculpture as it was contested in its time for Dantan's position as a radical revolutionary.

St. Michel Fountain, Plaee St. Michel.

I'll be honest--I just threw this in at the end because it is awesome.  St. Michel with sword = epic.  Winged dragons spitting water = epic.  Ok--if you insist--that St. Michel up there was supposed to be Napoleon Bonaparte, but was rejected for academically interesting political reasons. 

I'll be honest again--I just wrote this heavily academic post so I could write the next one guilt-free.  Stay tuned.