Settling in… Paris

We’ve been following the horrific events at home this past week and trying to deal with what these murders say is happening in our country.  We are deeply saddened and horrified at the racism and anti-Semitism these represent.  This blog not the place for me to say anything more — so I won’t.  More will come later.  

For some reason, we’ve been continuing to sleep in late each day, and not getting out until 1 or 2 p.m. or later!  It is actually quite nice to have the luxury to do that — and we’re taking advantage of it.  Since I wrote last we’ve been quite busy despite our late starts.   I’ll show you some of what we’ve seen at two exhibitions and some fun window shopping.  But first — a cup of hot chocolate after braving the cold walking around the Luxembourg Gardens.  Hot chocolate — served in a cup, thick chocolate at the bottom to which one adds warm milk as desired.  This is quite the treat.

We didn’t have anything sweet with the hot chocolate, but just look at this meringue tower we saw not far from here.

The Alberto Giacometti exhibit is at the Musée de Maillot, in the 7th, on rue de Grenelle. We met our friends there and spent the next hour viewing these beautiful works which none of us had ever seen.  I didn’t know that Giacometti had a cubist period… but here were several sculptures from that period.  This one was especially engaging… called the The Couple.  They really are quite the pair!

The piece de resistance, however, was the Walking Man, which stands 6 ft. tall, and is haunting in its other worldliness — at least to me.  In the exhibit, one comes across this piece as one turns to the left and is suddenly confronted by the view you see below.  I was startled — and I think I let out a soft gasp.  Look at his feet….

.Walking Man from the front.

Giacometti worked hard on the eyes of his subjects — their gaze being something he worked over and over again.   Below is another — but on a much smaller scale – perhaps 14 inches in height.

Above are 4 women rising up out of the bronze block.  They are prostitutes — I don’t think he liked women very much.   They are only shown as static figures, without movement.  These are only about 18 inches in height.

At an exhibit at the Grand Palais about Venice in the 18thc, we saw the sculpture below by Antonio Couradini (1752).  How he made stone to look like a delicate and transparent veil covering her face left us in awe.   What a contrast between the two artists.

The other figure that caught my attention was this one.  I didn’t note who did it, but what made me take a second look was the chain in orange, making it clear that the man holding the urn was a slave.  I am still working on trying to figure this one out…. any thoughts, anyone?

No time to add the window shopping here — I’ll save that for the next blog.

i