Rosa’s Bataille Heroique
What do you hang next to the Mona Lisa? Because of renovations to its regular salon, today Leonardo’s painting is displayed next to Salvator Rosa’s ‘Passage’ and ‘Bataille Heroique’. Who is Salvator Rosa, anyway? I felt flippantly sorry for these paintings: having to endure either an endless neglect or a glance begot only by the oblivious queuing lines and the art history student with an obscure thesis topic. After spending only slightly longer than the appropriate time gazing at the smirking lady and her smooth cracking hands, I stood to one side to watch everyone photograph the Mona Lisa. In some ways, this was more exciting than the painting itself: Mona effortlessly commands a flurry of faithful international fans. She is a tourist monument of immeasurable proportions housed in a slightly smaller than expected frame. But other than the latter fact, what real incentive is there to take her picture? Have you not seen her enough times already? Do you really require one more out-of-focus and poorly lit picture with your thumbprint? Perhaps your friends won’t believe that you have seen her and need some documentary proof? I wonder if Mona ever tires of the endless attention and glances begot only by the oblivious queuing lines and the foreign visitor with an obscure tendency to personify paintings.
Poseidon getting cleaned, Louvre
My hostel lay three km Northeast of city centre in the 19th arrondissement and was not the most inspiring of locations. Aside from the accommodation savings and a neglected guest kitchen at my disposal, I found little reason to return each night – Oh, that’s right, I needed a warm place to sleep! I met few people as I had a dormitory room to myself for half the time. Those I did meet, like me, would return only to sleep, leaving again early in the morning for work or study.
I think my days were filled with sites typical of visitors to Paris: Jardin Luxemburg, Musee d’Orsay, Centre Pompidou, Sacre-Cour de Montmartre, The Opera House, Champs-Elysees, Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe. Of all the galleries, the charmingly small Musee Rodin sits most pleasantly in my memory. After drowning in the smooth skin of classical Greco-roman statues in the Louvre, the surface of Rodin and Camille Claudel’s sculptures offered a refreshing imperfection while the collection offered a passionate example of art at its best.
Camille Claudel’s Waltz, Rodin Museum
Sacre Coeur in Montmartre
In Montmartre I listened to a street performer bow Andrew-Lloyd Webber musicals on his acoustic bass in thumb position without amplification. I sat in front of the 15th century ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ tapestries in a dimly lit room at the Musee Cluny. At the Arab World Institute, I watched the geometric pattern of the ‘moucharabiehs’, which are steel diaphragms on the southern facade that open or close according to the sun.
Paris skyline from Notre Dam’s bell tower
I noted again that every town in France has a street named after Victor Hugo! Victor Hugo’s famous novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, first published in 1831, coincided with a general reawakening of interest in the Middle Ages and its buildings. Hugo’s romantic and picturesque eloquence drew attention to the profoundly dilapidated condition of the cathedral in the early 19th century. He participated in the widespread campaign which resulted in the restoration of the building from 1845. A major par of the action of the novel takes place in the towers. He did not fail to give the bells and their famous bellringer, Quasimodo, a major role. I pictured the Parisian skyline from the heights of Notre-Dame’s 69 metre tall bell-tour in late evening as the gargoyles spoke quietly among themselves. The tip of the giant bell on one side was black with the oil of touching hands. I frequently saw the harmonic Gothic facade of the cathedral during my time in Paris.
Notre Dame and her flying buttresses
The blue stained glass windows of Louis IX’s Sainte-Chappelle, all 6,457 square feet of them, saw me at their feet after having deposited my Swiss Army knife with the security guards at the entrance. It was designed to house the relics of Christ’s Passion, especially the Crown of Thorns. I foolishly paid too much for a hot chocolate in a street-side cafe (again) and shivered on a green park bench while I ate my makeshift lunch under an overcast sky.
Paris in all its glory during the leafless winter month of January offered many interesting but in the end inadequate experiences: they were all missing someone with whom I could share them. I had no one to whisper to, no one to dine out with and ultimately, being in Paris exacerbated my starvation for good company.
Eurostar, Eurostar where art thou?
Eiffel Tower
Paris skyline from Notre Dam’s bell tower
Opera House ceiling
Opera House