Art in Paris

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After the Tate Modern in London, sitting down to blog about the experience seemed like an easy task. But this was because my attention had been undivided. How It Is made my head turn. Our experience in both Le Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay was quite different though. Everything was good. And while everything made some sense, everything also made less sense than I ever would have hoped for. Having never taken an art history course before, the past two days have been a rush. As such, the following entry is a jumble of my thoughts - some academic (or an attempt at), and other thoughts really just the recognition of pictures that look pretty. We looked at hundreds of paintings. I've picked out 9 to share with our friends and family.

Number 1: “The Sermon of St. Stephen at Jerusalem” by Carpaccio

I valued our visits to the museums over the past couple days because we actually toured the works chronologically. Not just within the museums, but between museums. Musee d'Orsay picks up essentially where Le Louvre ends. As such, our tour at Le Louvre began initially with a lot of paintings of biblical figures. This first painting caught my eye simply due to past discussions where I've been at a party and somebody says to me, “Hey, don't you think Jesus actually had dark skin?” And so I answer the question with, “Good point,” and the discussion continues revolving around the European representations of Jesus Christ. Well, here was a painting I found where Jesus wasn't present, but there was a Caucasian disciple proclaiming the Gospel to a number of people in Jerusalem. I repeat... Jerusalem. I may be missing something.

Number 2: “Hercules et Omphale” by Francois Lemoyne

In this painting Hercules has been seduced and has traded gender roles with the woman beside him. I thought it was clever.

Number 3: “Group of Oaks at Apremont” by Theodore Rousseau

In the last art class I ever took in grade 8 I found that I enjoyed drawing trees... A LOT. So much so, that when I drew the antlers on an elk, the elk would end up looking as though it had grown a tree from its head. This guy managed to paint a really nice tree. So, I include this painting in the list. The rest of society found it interesting because the tree became the focal point rather than the man - a naturalist thing. Two thumbs up.

Number 4: “Napoleon Visiting the Plague-Stricken” by Antoine Jean Gros

Like a good piece of history, this painting meant more than just the story on the canvas. In this painting, a story is depicted in which Napoleon Bonaparte comes to visit the sick and dying of his army - a dying group of people that have been stricken by a plague. The most striking part of the image is that Napoleon is touching the sick, with bare hands - his glove noticeably off and to the side. This is a big deal - you just don't go around touching people sickened by the plague. However, the story goes that this painting was actually commissioned by Bonaparte himself. The reason for this was that he actually left these people to die; the sooner they were dead, the sooner he could get on with the war. The British used this story regarding Napoleon's lack of mercy against him. Consequently, Napoleon was left to defend his name, and so, he commissioned the painting, showing his story of mercy.



Number 5: “The Painter's Studio” by Courbet

This piece came forth in a time when Goustav Courbet was developing highly criticized works. While Courbet was defiant, he was also sensitive to the issue. The Painter's Studio brings to light Courbet's recognition of the social responsibility of the artist. There are a lot of people from every walk of life that will have an opinion on any piece. It brought to my mind, the trial that most artists have probably always faced - not the question of whether or not they were able to master their craft, but whether or not they had anything to contribute.


Number 6: “The Origin of the World” by Courbet

“It is the painter's virtuosity and amber color harmonies which prevent the 'Origin of the World' from being a pornographic image.” This was the official comment made on the piece as we viewed it. So, I went looking for a definition for pornography. While the definitions I found said nothing regarding 'amber color harmonies', they did say that pornography usually does not contain artistic merit. Considering the large debate as to, 'What is art?' I'm not going to even go down that path. There was one other definition for pornography though, and that was that it was 'designed to cause sexual arousal'. The problem with this is that it leaves pornography left to the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, maybe it's the best we have. So, on the 'Origin of the World'... I think Courbet might have been rejected in his time had he painted a penis.

Number 7: “Van Gogh”

I liked the commentary for this self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was quoted as saying to his sister, “I am looking for a likeness more profound than the one the photographer obtains.” From the little bit I know about Van Gogh, this sounds like a good summation of his work. I learned, the interesting thing about post-impressionism in reference to a self-portrait is that it provides the artist with more liberty in conveying him or herself. Hence, wondering what Van Gogh thought about himself, I'm writing about this painting now.

Number 8: “Le Moulin de la Galette” by Renoir

While Van Gogh was a post-impressionist, Renoir was an impressionist. Color didn't come from his imagination, and yet, he never tried to limit his perception to statements like, “The sky is blue”. Instead, the sky, or the chair, or the whatever, could be any assortment of colors and shades depending on the angle of the viewer and the time of the day. Learning about this stuff while at the museum was exciting to me because it brought me back to a philosophy class I had taken in my last year of school that was based around perception. We asked questions like: What is pain? Do I see green, or do I think green? And, are we seeing the same green?

These questions became really vivid for me in the movement from Renoir to Van Gogh. To be a post-impressionist by choice is to alter what you want to see. But to what extent were Van Gogh's post-impressionist qualities voluntarily? He was psychologically ill. What did his world look like?

As I was taking the class in school, I read The Doors of Perception. The book asserted the idea that the psychedelic perceptions that occur while under the influence of mescaline are not really imagined, but are almost more like a gateway into a different way of seeing the world (hence, the title). At the time, this made me really curious in the context of the class because it suggested that even should the chemicals in our brains be altered somewhat, we are still perceiving just as valid a reality as the reality which we are normally accustomed to. As such, the idea of a 'psychological imbalance' becomes defined by its reference to the norm. If we consider that a 'psychological imbalance' can also come about not just by mescaline but by disease, this stretches the limits as to what might be called a legitimate reality. i.e., Are mentally ill people seeing something the rest of us can't?

To cut to the chase, Van Gogh's reality, while often dismissed as wacky might still be considered to be legitimate under this line of thought. But to what extent was he a post-impressionist? (i.e., Was Van Gogh always altering what he was perceiving?) If this seems like an obvious answer (no... he painted weird things because he was sick), then doesn't that make the work of other post-impressionists more venerable, and the life of Van Gogh just that much more tragic?

Number 9: “Madame Jeamtaid au miroir” by Edgar Degas

I thought this painting was pretty cool. Apparently Degas mixed synthetic and realist styles. The mirror vs. reality shows the dichotomy. Mostly I just thought it was creepy how the woman looked so much more evil in the mirror.

So there it is, all laid out. For art history majors and hobbyists whom I have offended by my ignorance, my apologies. I hope I got some things right. I really appreciated our visits, mostly because it tied a lot of things together for me. It helped explain a lot about religion, history, and the development of our culture.

On a side note, the overwhelming swarm of tourists was disheartening. A lot of people were there to rush through the crowd, get a picture of themselves with the popular paintings and then get the heck out. It made Monet look like a rock star. And while perhaps Monet is a bit of a rock star in the painter's world, I think he'd appreciate it if people stopped to look at his work. I suppose this simply calls for patience. I'm sure the designer of the chair I'm sitting in would be upset that I don't even know his name. Hope you all are well 😊

- tim

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