A Macabre View of Paris Part Two

When I think of the opera, I think of big Viking women singing like there’s no tomorrow.  And maybe a chorus made up of peasants, singing about their happy little lives—just before they storm the castle.  Basically, something dramatic is always going down.  So why shouldn't the décor at the Opera Garnier be just as dramatic?

We start with this happy looking fella, who I noticed staring down at me from the ceiling of the outdoor balcony overlooking Place de l'Opera.  Is he crying because spears are sticking out of his head?  Or is he just sad that no one notices him as they stand at the railing and watch all the brightly colored buses zoom by?  As drama masks go, this face, much like the face of a two-year-old who has been told no when he tries to stick his finger in the light socket, is pretty standard.  If I had spent more time searching I’m sure I would have found his counterpart—a happy face.

I’m pretty proud of this find.  It wasn't easy to see, being in a fairly darkened anteroom off the main staircase.  I've increased the light to it so you can see the wild bats and owls painted above the lights.  This is great detail.  Very imaginative.

This little dragon was slinking his way around the base of the main staircase.  He wasn’t easy to spot, since his color blended in with the stairs, and he was really, really still.  Why would a dragon be sneaking around the hems of all those overdressed opera socialites?

Every Opera needs a ghost.  And this one looks deliciously spooky.  Even better, she has a companion ghost.  What was so great about them was the fact that they were lit from below, surrounded mostly by the dark.

On the front corner of the Opera, you can see this fun-loving group.  The only thing better than an angel that destroys its foe?  One who takes the time to step on him after she’s done so.  Whoever this guy is, she is really infuriated with him.  I get the idea she’s about to use that stick to bash in his head.  She does not like the guy.  It’s a safe bet.

A bonus picture for today.  From the Musee D’Orsay, we see this depiction of hell in William Bouguereau's Dante and Virgil.  This demon is pleased to see Redhead tearing into his wrestling partner—with both his teeth and with his hand.  I was impressed that my fourteen-year-old son knew right away who these guys were.  Anybody else know?  I’ll give you a hint—just off to the side we can see Dante and Virgil observing the scene.

  Bouguereau painted this terrible scene in an effort to win the Prix de Rome from the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which he had failed to win the previous two years.  It was said Jacques-Louis David nearly attempted suicide after failing to win in three attempts.  Bouguereau's Dante and Virgil won him the prize.  (A feat even Degas and Manet never accomplished.)  You can see the full painting here, a site with the complete list of his paintings.  Despite this intense, violent scene, 29 years later, Bouguereau would give the world his most famous and more beautiful work: The Birth of Venus, which won the Grand Prix de Rome at the 1879 Paris Salon.  Botticelli's The Birth of Venus is by far the more famous, but I always liked Bouguereau's more.

  Amazingly, Bouguereau went from being one of the most popular artists of his time to near eradication from the world of art after Degas and many others singled him out and derided his work.  His staunch opposition to the Impressionists seems have been a major factor in this.  At one point, his name was not even listed in encyclopedias.  Oppose newly popular artists at your own risk!

My View of Paris Broadens

   We have discovered that it is far more worthwhile to walk the streets of Paris away from the popular tourist locations.  Such landmarks are certainly beautiful, but it is so much more stressful to be in the middle of harried tourists who have an agenda and are not about to be interfered with.  Take the road less traveled and you will see Parisians more relaxed and chattering away.  Here, after we wandered the Latin Quarter one evening, I saw this couple trying to decide if they wanted to eat at the Aux 2 Oliviers.  Shortly after this, near the French Senate, I realized we were about the only ones on the street, and the hour was getting late.  I decided not to tempt fate, and I steered us past Eglise St. Sulpice, back onto a major avenue, and then back home.

   This photograph I took is controversial.  The statue, Le Desespoir (Despair), by Jean-Joseph Perraud, is on display at the Musee D'Orsay.  We were not aware that the museum is in the middle of a battle with museum patrons over its new 'no photograph' policy.  In a recent move that no one on the museum staff can adequately explain, photographs have been prohibited in the museum.  Not just flash photos, which are prohibited in most museums due to the damage that thousands of flashes can do to many unprotected canvases.  The Musee D'Orsay has declared that any photographs are prohibited, and they have stood by their policy regardless of the public outcry.  They say it has to do with the rise of 'arms length' photos taken with camera-phones, though I have no idea how that can be a real problem.  Yes, it is annoying to see everyone with their cellphones in front of them, as if they were flipping off someone with an electronic bird, but that hardly constitutes reason to stop all photography.  To clarify how odd this rule is, the Louvre, across the Seine, allows pictures to be taken, as well as the Art Institute of Chicago, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and nearly every other major museum.  Most of these art pieces are in the public domain, and have been photographed many, many times, so there is no question of copyright violations.  When a rather feisty looking staff-member began shaking her finger at me saying "no photo, no photo", I put away my camera, which, by the way, was around my neck when we entered the museum, and no one said a word to me then.  We viewed the few Van Gogh's on display, but were not impressed with the overwhelmingly large number of paintings that would have made Hugh Hefner proud.  I must say I was impressed at how every artist seemed to be able to fit at least one bare-breasted woman into the most mundane setting.

   We did not stay long at the D'Orsay.  It was poorly designed, confusing, and we felt as if we would be better off getting out of there.  It was cold and rainy outside, and we were right; walking the streets in the rain was better than staying in the D'Orsay.  Here, in the Rue de L'Hirondelle, I caught this scene that is too perfect to be real.  I am amazed at how often I can take shots like this with no one on the street.  And when I first lined up the shot, the street was indeed empty.  This is just across the street from St. Michel Fountain, a very busy and popular place, even late in the evening.  After getting one or two shots of the empty street, I could hear someone behind me.  I have learned how providential it is when someone does show up, since they almost always improve the scene.  Here, a shopper is carrying his recent purchase, and that pink bag is a great contrast to his broad-shouldered silhouette.  Just before this shot was taken, we ate at a little Pizza place on the Quai de Grands Augustins, which is just opposite the Palais de Justice.  It felt like any little pizza shop you might find in a small town in the Midwest states of the U.S.  The proprietor, a white-haired man who made many animated faces but said almost nothing, took our orders by encouraging us to point at the menu items.  We did, he nodded, and limped away.  At one point, I called to him, when he was just a few feet away, but his back was to me, and my loud "monsieur, monsieur!" was never heard.  We decided he must be deaf, and I went back to my pizza.  Then we watched him step outside, smoke a cigarette, and chat quite easily with two young French women for a long time.  We understood.  He had learned to shut himself off to the tourists, not wanting to struggle with either the language barrier or the bad manners of the tourist class.  Jennifer became bold, and when he came back in, she began to tell him that we were from Louisiana, and that his cafe-au-lait was as good as it is in New Orleans.  "Lousiana?"  He perked up.  "C'est tres Francais!"  (It is very French!)  Jennifer won him over.  He then spoke easily with us, hearing us just fine.  We loved his pizza shop, and hope to get back to it before we leave.

As I said, an unexpected visitor can improve a picture.  Down in the Paris Catacombs, I was having trouble taking pictures, since flash photography was prohibited, my camera would take the pictures, but with slow shutter speed to compensate for the lack of light, and I have never had a steady hand for that kind of work.  Finally, I found a better-than-average lit area where I could get a decent shot.  Just then, a little boy came over and began playing with the single spotlight behind us.  I was tempted to become annoyed, but then I saw his shadow-puppets and I wanted to capture at least one of them.  I did, but I had to act quickly.  He moved pretty fast--nearly as fast as the French words that trilled from his lips.  The bones in the catacombs are from the many cemeteries around the Paris area, where the dead were literally spilling out of the ground and the solution was to remove the older bones and stack them in the great empty stone mines that were left behind when the stone was removed to build such landmarks as Cathedral de Notre Dame and the many palaces and great monuments we will be visiting in the coming week.  There is nothing macabre about this tour.  It is actually quite lovely, and moving.  The signs tells us in which cemetery the bones were originally interred with their general dates.  We had to wait an hour and a half to take the tour, in very cold wind with a slight drizzle during some of it, but it was all worth it.