Musée d'Orsay - all new!

From the viewing platform

We (Paul, Emma and I) went to the Musée d'Orsay last Tuesday: It's a completelly new museum, all re-decorated and the art is all re-distributed throughout; so if even if you've been there before, it's most definitely worth revisiting. Des Racines et des Ailes did a special report on the refurbishment a couple of weeks ago. (Click the link to the show to check if the video is still available.) It was an excellent show that incited us to schedule our visit for after my return from England.
One thing that bugged me is that this museum still has a "no photo" rule, although photos from the viewing platform or in the non-exhibit areas are tolerated. I saw plenty of people taking pictures, trying to hide or hold their smartphones awkwardly to do it. Why not just allow it and request people not use flash. Plenty of the artwork has been photographed and if you open the links to articles here, you'll see them.

In no particular order, if you head right from the sculpture gallery on the ground floor (that hasn't changed, but they've cleaned the white sculptures that had been dirtied from so many hands caressing them over the years) you see many of the pre-Impressionist influencers and post-Impressionist influenced. Actually it's quite mixed. I started making associations. For example in Gustave Moreau's symbolism I saw the influence on Ensor (wrote about that in Jan. 2010) who was about a generation later. Moreau has his own museum in Paris, In Puvis de Chavanne I saw an influence on A. Wyeth. (Maybe I'm thinking of Wyeth because there's an exhibit I'd like to go to at the Mona Bismarck foundation.) Puvis de Chavanne also did some patriotic, sepia-colored art during the Franco-Prussian war -- a woman holding a rifle, looking out over the city. Very sad. And I loved the vibrant colors in Odilon Redon's pastels.

5th floor, in front of the clock

There is a collection of Vuillard (Jardins Publics), Bonnard (En Barque), and Toulouse-Lautrec (cabaret scenes) and they all go together perfectly. One of the new things at the museum is the wall paint. They've gotten rid of the white walls. The walls are deep green, red, blue-gray, slate colors. They pick up the colors from the paintings and the paintings stand out all the better for it. The lighting is perfect.

There's a tryptique (three paintings framed together): a Sisley, a Pissaro, and a Monet.You could think it was all done by a single artist. On the ground floor, the artists are all mixed together, in collections. I loved the Mollard collection of Degas, Renoir, Pissaro, and Sisley, and more, all jumbled together.

Then you go through the Barbizon school of painting: Daubigny, Rosa Bonheur's cows, Millet's peasants, and Corot's landscapes. You still haven't hit the Impressionist exhibit! That's now up on the 5th floor. I've seen so much Monet in the past year, at Rouen and then at the Grand Palais, and Renoir at the Grand Palais, so I was able to skip around a bit. Manet's Olympe is on a deep red wall -- fantastic effect.

I didn't make it to the 2nd floor for Van Gogh and other post-Impressionists, Art Nouveau and so on. That'll be for another time. I did take a look at the temporary exhibit "Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde". Lots of Whistler! And beautiful furniture (William Morris and Godwin), ironwork (Thomas Jeckyll) and silverware (Christopher Dresser)!

As you can see, I loved it!

Just had a fun week in England!

First of all, flying into Birmingham was not expensive and the fare included my checked bag and a reserved seat, so all in all it was cheaper than EasyJet's fare + luggage + premium boarding. The train station is in the airport. It costs just over £11 for Northampton and takes a little less than an hour. It looks like the trains are frequent. A quick call to Geoff to let him know when I'd be in and he picked me up at the station. But if he hadn't been working from home, I could have caught the 9 or 9A bus and gotten off almost in front of their house just a few minutes later.

It was great, however to be picked up and after a late lunch of stew and a cup of tea, I headed off to pick up Aurelia at the nursery. I had about an hour or so to play with her before Claire got home. The house is lovely; any left over boxes are out of the way and the carpet upstairs looks great. Geoff left after dinner to pick up Charlotte at the mid-way pick-up spot. That way no one has to drive very far. Charlotte and Aurelia are always excited to see each other so they were late to bed.

Aurelia is a real chatterbox. In French. In English. The only thing is she's not quite intelligible yet. You can catch a word here and there. Sentences. Verbs in English are almost always in the progressive form. She counts: Un, deux, three, sept, quatre, ....

Aurelia, though, was still early to rise in the morning and came into my room to cuddle.Saturday, we dodn't do much; it was a lazy day, except for Geoff, who managed to replace the shower pump in the main bathroom and put the cat flap on the kitchen door so that they can now close that door and keep the draft out. He, at least, was very productive. Charlotte converted a box into a car and drove Aurelia. THen Aurelia was allowed to drive Charlotte and they both decorated the car. Pizza dinner was capped with a wonderful fireworks display that we watched from the warmth of the kitchen. Don't know exactly where it was, but it was very long and pretty.

On Sunday, the car became a plane when they lifted the side flaps and redecorated. Later in the day, we went to Toys'R Us and they played in the cars there, but I think they had more fun in their own car. 

Sunday, Geoff was again productive. He changed the lock on the main door. After lunch we headed down to Woking with a stop at Nigel and Valérie's place. It's coming along fine and Nigel is really doing all the work, so it's slow. But it's liveable and they are now working on the extra rooms. We all headed to the parents' for tea and then supper, which was excellent, as usual. All this time I got to observe, read to, and play with the girls.

Monday, after everyone left, I went into Northampton on my own, by bus. One way fare is expensive, but if you get a return ticket, it's not so bad. Nothing in town struck my fancy, so after picking up a bit of take-out lunch, I went back to the house, rested, and then picked up Aurelia from nursery. I had thought I'd be doing a lot of holiday shopping, but in the end, nothing. More playing. This time the box became a boat and we sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Bateau sur l'eau" endlessly, well, until Geoff got home.

Tuesday was the day I had set aside to stay home and wait for the dishwasher delivery and then do a little housework. Well, the machine was delivered at 7 a.m.! Geoff was still home! So, I took my time doing the ironing, but there was a ton of it, so, with breaks, it took the better part of the day. With all the rerun stations and then the stations that run the same programs an hour later, I got my fill of CSI episodes while ironing. 

Wednesday was the day I headed to Manchester. The reason I was going to Manchester was to see my high school friend, Beth Levin. She and I hadn't seen each other since graduation! We really didn't have much time to chat, but since Beth is very prolific on facebook, it was really like just picking up conversation where we left off. The program was not typically the kind of music I'll go after. It's what I might hear on France Musique, but not seek. I was pleasantly surprised at really enjoying it: Frank E Warren, David F Golightly and Kevin Malone (University of Manchester, The Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, Manchester UK. Beth Levin, Piano; Cheryl Law, Viola; Emily Howard, Mezzo Soprano) The Anthony Burgess selection by Kevin Malone is excellent. 

On Wednesday afternoon I walked down to the Museum of Science and Industry and mae it in time for a demonstration of the machines used in the cotton industry. Heaven knows, Manchester was the textile capital of the world and most of the technological innovations of the 19th century were for those machines. Thursday, before the concert, I went to the art museum. After the concert I didn't have the time to go to the People's Museum, so that'll have to wait for the next time. Manchester was lovely, bustling, sunny, all the things I didn't expect.

The trip we didn't take to Barcelona

A little over two weeks ago, Paul and I decided to get away for a few days. The Nov. 1 holiday, All Saints Day, meant that I didn't need to go into the library and since it always coincides with school holidays, my other activities were off, too. Where to go? Well, we could go east and visit our friends in Freiburg, Germany and Basel, Switzerland, or south towards Montpellier where we also have friends and then on to Barcelona. We chose to go south. 

We left on Wednesday morning and took the highway that goes through the Massif Centrale, through the volcano area beyond Clermont-Ferrand, through Ardeche to Millau, where we got off the highway to take smaller roads. From Millau there is a beautiful view of the new bridge on the highway. It is quite a high and long bridge. Since we got off before the bridge, we got to see the view. We knew we were heading for Aniane, which is a town north of Montpellier where Emma is interested in settling. There should have been a road that went though the hills of maquis, but we got to T intersection instead of being able to cross. So, really we ended up going on a big detour because we ended up on the highway again. 

Aniane is a town that seems to have a permanent population and activity. Nearby is St-Guilem-le-Desert, with its abbey. St. Guilem is all shut down for the winter. It's beautifully restored, but very touristy. There are gigantic parking lots as you approach and in season you have to park there and take the shuttle to the village. The shops, most of which are shut, are all tourist-trap type businesses. Almost every house is a "guest" house. On the far side of the hill -- go left instead of right -- is St. Jean de Fos, where the grape and olive growers live. There are lots of vinyards and olive groves all around the area. We spent Thursday morning driving and walking around those two towns and then headed down to Montpellier to see our former neighbors. They lived next door to us for a few years; he's American, from Cherry Hill, and she's Spanish, from Barcelona. They have a little boy, 6, and twin girls, 3 1/2. They certainly made a good move to a spacious house near the center of Montpellier and not far from the university. It was a pleasure to see them and have a nice family lunch with them before they themselves headed off on a holiday the next day. After lunch, and on their recommendation, we visited the Valmagne Abbey. Beautiful. The architect created the illusion of greater depth by making the pillars thinner (almond-shaped) and closer together at the far end. The stone is old seabed limestone, so you can see the shell incrustations. And it's a nice faded ocre color. It was raining off and on and by the time we got back to the hotel in Aniane, it was pretty non-stop.

The rain was heavy the next morning and the weather report was for heavy rain all day and the next few days, and according to the map, we figured it was going to be that way all the way to Barcelona. However, it looked like it might be clearer towards Toulouse. So, we headed westward towards Toulouse. We went to see the Lac de Salagou, which is another area Emma has been interested in. We could drive around the lake over the dam, so it was a long drive to get to the other side and see Celles, the village that was abandoned when they built the dam, but which did not end up under water in the end. In the rain and out of season, it's really desolate.

We continued, taking the smallest roads, zigzagging through the Montagne Noire, which was indeed dark in the rain. But it was a beautiful drive. The leaves are changing color (late, this year) and most of the trees still have their leaves. The road was sometimes tiny and it took us almost 8 hours for this short drive to Toulouse.

The next day, we spent the morning walking around Toulouse (St. Sernin, les Jacobins, the museum, ...), and then it was time to go see our old friends. We spent a few hours with them, catching up on families. We even saw their two girls, one, who lives near Pau now, and the other, who is a lawyer in Paris. 

On Sunday, we left a little early in order to reach the Lebelles in Pau for lunch. Again, we wanted to take the leisurely pace of the smaller roads. Unfortunately, I had left my notebook computer at the parking lot (I guess I put it down when I paid) and we had to go back to get it. Since I had handed in a voucher from the hotel, the parking lot attendant called the hotel and they called me -- oof!), so we headed back, picked up the computer, and then had to take the highway to Pau in order not to be late. We didn't want to miss lunch because Emmanuelle's parents were there and heading home after lunch. We hadn't seen them in 10 years, so it would have been a shame to miss saying hello, at least. 

Emmanuelle and Alexandre are great hosts; we did make it for lunch and stayed on over night. The next morning, under cloudless skies, we went for a nostalgic drive to Bagnères-de-Bigorre and then through the Vallée de Campan to the Tourmalet and then on to the Col d'Aubisque. As we left the mountains, we hit rain again and stopped for the night in Mont de Marsan. 

We headed home on Tuesday, through the Périgord and Dordogne. It was raining the whole time, so we didn't feel like visiting much of anything. Sarlat looked pretty full of people; we couldn't find a parking spot. We stopped for lunch, an excellent lunch at Les Viviers St. Martin, which seemed to be one of the very few restaurants open on the holiday.

At some point we ended up on a highway, the old N 20, but as we got closer to the toll road, on the approach to Paris, we got off again and meandered home.

I hope you open some of the links to the places I mentioned. 

Last week was an uneventful week at home and now I'm at Claire & Geoff's! I'm going to see Beth Levin later in the week when she comes to Manchester. Haven't seen her in 43 years; I hope we manage to find a little time to chat ;-)