Museums Made to Order Just for Me!

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The day started with a short ride to what I would say was the most ornate of subway stations I had ever seen, that is, the Louvre-Rivoli station. They have made it look like you are actually walking down the hall of a museum! This of course takes you to the Rue de Rivoli along which the Musee du Louvre runs. I made my way down the side of the building in order to enter the inner courtyard. At this time of day, the only people milling about were Army security personnel toting their riffles (gotta keep that Mona Lisa safe!). The building itself is absolutely stunning.

I then passed another archway to catch my first glimpse of that famous glass pyramid. First, I do have to admit that it is smaller than I had imagined it but still not a disappointing sight. It is made up of 666 panes of glass (mmmm … how satanic!) and it is actually the entrance to the museum itself. It is used essentially as a skylight. It is surrounded by triangular reflecting pools with fountains and three smaller pyramids.

I made my way past Place du Carrousel which leads to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. This is the smallest of three arches (including the Arc de Triomphe and the Grande Arche de la Defense) that makes up Triumphal Way. This led me back to Rue de Rivoli and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. This is actually a separate wing of the Louvre and what attracted me to it is that its collection covers French fashion, advertising and interior décor … almost tailor made just for me, wouldn’t you say?

The fashion section included a temporary exhibit on French designer Madeleine Vionnet, whose first fashion house was actually located at 222 Rue de Rivoli. In order to present this exhibit, the museum performed restoration work for almost two years on all of the pieces before they could be shown. Each mannequin was also accompanied with a small digital frame at its feet that alternated between a description and either a rendition or original photograph of the piece. Some of the casings also had mirrors so that you could see both the front and back of these beautiful dresses (I would have taken most of them home!!)

I had never heard of Madeleine Vionnet but in reading some of the texts, you definitely got a sense that she was quite a strong-minded character! She divorced in 1896 (how scandalous!) and opened her first fashion house in 1912 (which briefly closed during World War I). She was a meticulous artist (the quote attributed to her states something to the effect of “why would you want to build Fords, when you can build Rolls Royces?”) and most of her creations are made from simple shapes like triangles, squares and circles. In looking at them, it is a little hard to believe that that was the case but there were screens that showed graphics as to how certain dresses were put together. She did not use sketches, only a wooden form and did not believe in the use of hooks, buttons and of course, completely eliminated the use of corsets! She was also very much against copies and counterfeits. She set a precedent when she won a court case and later was instrumental in the creation of the Association pour la Defense des Arts Plastiques et Appliques, which help in the protection of artistic creations. It is also why she maintained meticulous records of all of her creations that were bound in these enormous books. She closed her fashion house in 1939 “parce que j’en avais plein le dos!” She died in 1975 at the age of 98 and is quoted as saying “je suis contente de ce que j’ai fait. Je me suis completement realisee”. Wow … I hope that one day I can say that I have accomplished everything that I have ever set out to do!

From there, the exhibit continued to the Gallery of Jewelry; two rooms with glass casings lined in black velvet and filled with beautiful, sparkly jewelry. It included rings, bracelets, hat pins, tie pins, hair combs and the list goes on. There was also a whole wall dedicated to the types of materials used over time to make jewelry. I was a little disturbed at the thought that certain jewelry was made with human hair! I also had to laugh when I saw that one of the pieces (which dated back only to the mid-1970’s) was a razor blade necklace … I am 99% certain that my dad had one of those!!

The next section was a showing of the original prints of Toulouse-Lautrec. First of all, I don’t think that there is any other artist that personifies Paris as much as he does. Second of all, what dumb luck that I would come here when this temporary exhibit would be taking place. I have a print of his in my entrance way and never imagined I would have the possibility to see the original. I was surprised to read that he only produced 31 prints (of which only 26 were presented here … of course the one I have at home was noticeably absent … merde!). The more rec ognizable were definitely there like the Divan Japonnais, Moulin Rouge, Salon des Cent, Jane Avril and Aristide Bruant Dans Son Cabaret. I never realized that Aristide Bruant was a real person as were many of his other subjects. Bruant was a singer (and an anarchist, apparently!) and he did indeed wear a long black coat, hat and red scarf!

The final section is part of the permanent collection and is dedicated to interior décor, that is, anything that can be found in a home spanning from the Renaissance to modern day. There were armoires, paintings, beds, sculptures, dishes and the list goes on. Again I had to laugh when as I was making my way though the furniture of the 1970’s, I spotted a plastic molded chair exactly like one we had (the one on display was black … ours was a lovely shade of bright orange with a few patches of fiberglass!!) The exhibit ended with a temporary section called “Aussi Rouge Que Possible”. It essentially showed how the colour red was used and the message it conveyed in a number of areas like sensuality, politically, in clothing, in interior design (like that couch in the shape of red lips!) and in terms of power (like Napoleon’s red coat!).

After a bit of souvenir shopping, I meandered through the Jardins des Tuilleries which leads all the way to the Place de la Concorde (which is essentially a traffic circle with a huge obelisk in the centre of it … ils sont fous ces Gaulois!!). The Jardins des Tuilleries is actually very similar to the Jardins du Luxembourg although the latter is much more beautiful. This is a little dustier and less green and people (and by people, I mean tourists) just seem to be passing through on their way to the Louvre or the Place de la Concorde.

Right off the Jardins des Tuilleries is another separate wing of the Louvre called Jeu de Paume and is home to collections on photography. The temporary exhibit I saw was called Planete Parr: the Collection of Martin Parr. He is a photographer himself but also a collector so the images and objects that were presented were not necessarily his work. There were some stunning photographs. One piece that did stand out was the photo of that American soldier (Lynndie England) who was photographed along with other soldiers humiliating prisoners (I believe that it was in Baghdad …not sure). The photo that was shown was where she has the prisoner on a leash. What was interesting is that the image itself was a photo-mosaic and they had essentially used 10,000 smaller photos of all that were involved in that scandal including the soldiers as well as George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Pretty interesting idea! Overall, the whole exhibit was quite interesting and very much worth the visit.

After seeing a few other random sights, I decided to make my way back towards the hotel but first I needed to grab supper. I had strolled through Rue des Rosiers a couple of days ago (hub of the Jewish Quarter) and had seen all of these people eating falafel (nothing surprising when you think that the entire street is lined with falafel restaurants every few feet!!) so that is where I decided to head for supper. And so this is how my day ended … with the most un-Parisian meal you could think of while watching CSI (Horatio is less dramatic with a French accent by the way!).

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[Loes]

railway station
You should go to Moscow for the best metro station in the world...beautiful!