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Tuesday, April 15, Day 14

April 18, 2014 by Virginia Parker 1 Comment

I’ve started sending myself an email that has the exact addresses of the places I might visit – this makes it a quick copy/paste to Google maps walking directions, or using the Metro app for best public transportation route, or showing to taxi or Uber drivers what to plug into their maps.

Since the Louvre is closed today, I have options – Do one of the audio walks, visit one of the small museums or head for a market.  The weather – a few degrees cooler than is has been helps me choose, and I call Uber for a ride to the Musée Jacquemart André, 158 Boulevard Haussmann. This is an exquisite jewel box of a museum, that reminds me of the Frick in New York City.

They also have a free app, that I preferred  to the audioguide offered at the door ( I tried both) https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/musee-jacquemart-andre-application/id582936499?mt=8.  It is a sad truth that the dim lighting required to preserve the works and the placement of paintings can mean that the Fran Hals portrait that’s a muted glimmer high up in a darkened corner in dim room in real life, is as clear and vivid as if I held it in my hand the sunlight, with subtleties of texture and brushwork easily visible on my iPhone screen.

What the screen lacks is scale and three-dimensionality, what reality lacks is everything else. This is not true (or as true) with sculpture. Even dark rooms and remote placement offers more to direct experience that the flattening screen image.

Back to this mansion, which was a marvel of its age, with walls that would sink down into the basement by way of hydraulics to accommodate tout Paris society. The version the museum puts out is charming and civilized – they loved each other and both loved art and he had pots of money which they spent hand over fist on the best art they could find. They differed only in that he preferred the Venetian artists and she championed the painters of Florence. I take it a face value and my visit is a pure pleasure.

menu

This includes my brunch, since I’d had nothing but that cup of tea. I lined up at the café door promptly at noon. I expected pastries and maybe a sandwich but it was ever so much nicer.  The regular menu blew my skirt up by naming every dish after a painter; Watteau, Bellini, Chardin, Mantegna, Fragonard, Ruysdael, Canaletto, Van Dyck. There was a special themed menu (as did the Isabella Stewart Gardener when I visited Boston in December)  created for the current exhibition; De Watteau à Fragonard, Les fête Galantes. I opted for duck breast in honey and soy, with risotto and  It was divine.I read my Nook, glanced around the cheerful company from time to time, and cleaned my plate down to the shine.

Two French ladies were seated next to me and they sounded like finches perched on a fountain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmdBSn-34E8  A rapid and variable sequence of warbles, with a lyrical, burbling undercurrent. The French language seems to have a naturally musical quality.  Perhaps it’s better to listen to the sound uncontaminated by meaning than be distracted by content.

I took in the special exhibit and, once again. the preparatory drawings seemed superior to many of the finished oil paintings.

Refreshed in spirit, off to the Joséphine exhibit at the Musée de Luxembourg (19 rue de Vaugirard) The audio guide was something of a hagiography, and I quickly realized how few facts I knew about her or Napoléon.  The exhibition claimed the 5’6″ Napoleon was average height for the times, though as you can see by her charming fur-lined and beribboned  walking boots,  Joséphine wore flats. That is why I have spent most of the evening chasing biographies of Joséphine around the Internet instead of writing my blog. I have sworn to have lights out early, as bleary vision is the bane of the museum visitor.

shoes

Dropped by the jewelry store that has the bracelet I’ve coveted. I’ve been back twice to look at it. I can’t justify it, but I decide if it’s still there, I’m going to get it. It’s as delicate as a filament in a light bulb with I Love This Life engraved on a delicate silver bar,  a twisted thread of aqua blue tying it on.  Very simple. I walked in, and walked out wearing it ten minutes later.  From the bracelet to the optometrist. Secretly worried the frames wouldn’t be as fab as I remembered but no, still totes adorb. Moment of unexpected hilarity. As the clerk checked the fit of the glasses, she handed me a card to read, to check the acuity of the prescription lenses.

glasses

I started laughing. I couldn’t read it, but that was because it was in French. I could see it with perfect clarity.

A fantastic day.

Filed Under: Paris Tagged With: audio guide, frick, glasses, Josephine, Musée Jacquemart André, museum, restaurant, strategy

Madrid Unfiltered, April 7

April 9, 2015 by Virginia Parker Leave a Comment

Tuesday, April 7
I did my laundry this morning and festooned the apartment with tee shirt and jeans, drying on hangers. It was close to noon by the time I walked over to the Museo del Romanticismo. http://museoromanticismo.mcu.es/. I decided to make the most of venturing away from the Prado to a new part of town. I took my time and moseyed along, looking in windows. I found a number of art supply stores I’ll revisit. I bought some Conté sticks here.

art store Best of all,  I stumbled across a great eyeglasses store with interesting frames – my favorite souvenir. I have their card and I will be back with my current prescription in hand.
I was looking for a pair or tortoiseshell or black frames and these have both –

black and brownBut then I saw these. Can’t decide what’s cooler, the pink and bronze or lavender and bronze.

pink and goldI haven’t even tried them on yet. That will probably tell the tale.

The museum was a little disappointing, despite the fact it packs in paintings, sculptures, furniture, painted fans, jewelry, carpets, coins, cameos and ceramics. There are way too many bad portraits of unappealing Spanish matrons and wooden-faced señors, and dishonest genre scenes of happy peasants larking about in native dress. A couple of pieces made it all worthwhile: a portrait of three children. The kids are okay, but the ram is really spectacular.

3 kids and a goat I spent a good hour trying to draw a small painting Mártir, by José María Rodríguez de Losada.  It was stark and raw and nothing like those hagiographic images of saints calmly ascending to heaven clasping their instrument of torture. Una_mártir_en_tiempo_de_Diocleciano_(Museo_Romántico_de_Madrid)In a small side room, there was a series of small paintings on the Inquisition, which struck me as a bold choice of subject for a painter; like taking on the jihadists nowadays.

The strangest thing was a dollhouse that had tiny nun dolls in their habits, so I guess it was a doll’s nunnery. They were working in a kitchen, singing around a piano and praying in one room.

The last exhibit was a fake house facade with windows the showcased. I three dioramas: a street with a carriage, a kitchen table, and a music room. Projected images materialized – a couple waltzing while a man playing the piano, a couple getting out of a carriage and putting on their gloves, a maid sweeping while a cook kneaded dough – and then disappeared. The mix of miniature props and video imagery was captivating, like watching ghosts from the era.

I was  the only person there (besides the guards) for a couple hours. The only other visitors were an English woman and a child who looked about seven years old and was tethered by a leash that resembled a bell pull. The mum had long hair, wore a bright floral dress on a linebacker build, and spoke in a bass voice. They were going through the rooms on a scavenger hunt. They were having a jolly time, couldn’t have been more cheerful.

I somehow missed breakfast – only a cup of tea – kept thinking I’d grab something on the street but I didn’t, and then didn’t get around to lunch until 4. The museum tearoom didn’t open until 2 and I was deep in the collection at that point. This whole change of time zone coupled with standard Madrid lunch at 2 and dinner at 10, has my stomach as confused as my sleep.

Health nut that I am, I ended up eating a cup of coconut gelato after I left the museum. I walked to the San Miguel Market where I ate cone of hot chicharones. I turned down the offer of baby squid tapas that looked exactly like a heap of slimy white worms.

squiddlet“With garlic,” the counter man said persuasively. “Um, not for me. More for you, brave man!” He laughed at that.
Can’t seem to get bedtime right. I am ready to nod off around 8pm, but make myself stay up until 10, since waking up at 1am is not good. Somehow I get wakeful again and can’t get to sleep until 2am. I sleep until 9am and technically it’s seven hours but I don’t feel rested. Ah well. It’s a small price to pay.
Tomorrow, back to the Prado. Rain is predicted for Thursday, so I’m penciling in the Thyssen instead of the Palace.

Filed Under: Madrid Tagged With: art supply store, food, glasses, Museo del Romanticismo, San Miguel Market

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