Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We walked
briskly in the almost cool afternoon, heading directly for the Esplanade des Invalides
because that is the most direct route for us to go to the Petit Palais, a
City of Paris museum with fabulous paintings.
We want to see the Paris 1900 special exhibition that is showing now
through August 17. As we walked up
through the Esplanade, we could see the beginnings of a demonstration
happening off to the east side of that vast green space. The demonstrators were carrying flags of
Arab countries. On my favorite
bridge, the Pont Alexander III, dozens of police paddy wagons were lined up
on the west side, pointed toward the Esplanade. I told Tom that I still hoped we’d be able
to walk home on the Berge de Seine on the left bank. I was optimistic that we could. Our plans to
walk to the Petit Palais on Thursday were rained out; I knew that Saturday
would be more crowded at the museum.
Sure enough, when we arrived we saw an incredibly long line of people
waiting to get into Paris 1900. There
was a much shorter line for those who already had tickets. People in the
last third of the long line were being told that there was no guarantee that
they’d make it into the museum before closing time. To add insult to injury, some incredibly
bad street musicians had set up next to the long line, which became their
captive audience. Oh how those poor
people suffered! We walked on to
the park benches under towering plane trees in the space between the Petit
Palais and the Champs Élysées. After resting for a few minutes, we
decided to go to see just the permanent collections at the Petit Palais (free admission).
As it turned
out, many paintings in the permanent collections had stickers on their
plaques indicating that they are a part of the Paris 1900 exhibition! One of those paintings was astounding, and
it was drawing much attention. Called “Les Halles,” this monumental canvas by Léon Lhermitte was commissioned by the City of Paris for its
city hall in 1889. Léon chose the
subject of the food market (Les Halles). The work created a stir at the Salon of
1895; some hated it because of its “disorder” that flew in the face of
academic “rules,” and others loved it for its liveliness and realistic
portrayal of the market scene. For me,
seeing this work yesterday was great timing; I’m in the middle of reading
Emile Zola’s Belly of Paris,
written about Les Halles at around this time (Le Ventre de
Paris, 1873). In the 1850s,
huge glass and iron buildings were constructed to cover most of the markets
at Les Halles – but not the fruit and vegetable market.
As Zola points out in his novel, the powers that be decided that the fruits
and vegetables would not be harmed by rain, so they didn’t need to be
covered. There seems to have been no
concern about the people who worked there. Léon Lhermitte’s painting shows this fruit and vegetable
market, in its uncovered and frenzied disorder. You do see chickens being carried through
the scene, but they’re on their way to the poultry market, or they’ve been
sold and are on their way out. Léon’s painting
stayed at city hall, I believe, until it was moved to the Petit Palais when it opened in 1904. It may have been shown in the early 1900s,
but in 1946, it was put away into storage until 2013, when the market of Rungis (successor to Les Halles)
funded its restoration so that it could be part of the current exhibition. The painting
evokes the toil of so many hard working people; when you stare at it, you can
almost hear the voices calling out to sell and buy the produce. The painting is monumental in more ways than
simply its size; it is alive, with action. I can’t help
but feel that Léon Lhermitte has not received the
attention he deserves. There is a
street named after him, and it is not far away from our apartment. We cross it when we walk into Square Saint
Lambert, on one of our favorite neighborhood strolls. The English
Wikipedia has a short entry on Lhermitte; the
French Wikipedia’s entry is not much more.
I wonder if that will change as a result of this exhibition? This morning, I
went online to buy tickets for the show.
We will go on Thursday afternoon, at 2PM. It was not possible to buy tickets for
today or Tuesday (museum is closed on Monday), and only one ticket was available
for Wednesday! We visited some
of our other longtime favorite paintings in the permanent collections,
including Fernand Pelez’s
Saltimbanques
(also called Grimaces et Misères). In the middle
of our visit, we paused for a snack (very late lunch?) at the café in the
museum. We love to sit in the garden
at this café. Then we took our time
seeing the rest of the main gallery and part of the side gallery. The museum shop was too crowded to enjoy
for long; we’ll go back there after the special exhibition is over. When we finally
left the museum, it was preparing to close for the day. We started across the Pont Alexandre III, intending to reach the Berges
de Seine on the left bank for our walk home.
But the police
had the entire bridge blocked off, due to the demonstration to protest the
strikes against Gaza. So we descended
to the riverbank on the right bank side.
After a short distance, we found ourselves picking our way through the
Bateaux Mouches area, which was crammed with
tourist buses and tourists. The buses
were having a hard time getting out of there due to traffic jams on the
streets, which were no doubt caused by the demonstration and the closure of
Pont Alexandre III.
The
demonstration, while attended by 3,000 to 8,000 people, was far smaller than
a similar one that happened a week ago.
The explanation given by some is that so many Parisians have left on
vacation. At the Pont de l’Alma, we were able to cross back over to the left
bank. We visited the Musée du Quai Branly garden,
and were surprised by the number of people there. This is a national museum (as opposed to
the Petit Palais, which is a City of Paris museum),
and therefore is open later on Saturday evenings. After a brief
respite at the apartment, we walked out in search of dinner. Tom wanted to see if La Veraison
was open; but of course, it was closed for vacation. So we walked back to the rue du Commerce
and settled on the brasserie across from the church, A la Tour Eiffel. This was the
first place we ate dinner together in Paris, in 1998. Recently, the restaurant and the entire
building it is in have been renovated.
We have not dined there in a long time. I remember the
food as being just good brasserie fare.
I was not prepared at all for the high quality vittles we were served
last night! Filets de dorade royale was the daily special. The fish
came with very thin slices of vegetables on top. The fish and veggies were roasted in
butter, and done to perfection. Each
bite melted in my mouth with an explosion of flavor. Oh la
la! Such
dorade! Tom had an
exceptionally good beef Carpaccio, with a generous amount of Parmesan
shavings on top. We shared a gorgeous
slice of blueberry tart (dessert of the day) that could not have been better. I asked Tom if
we could eat there every night. He
laughed.
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Sunday, August 10, 2014
Les Halles, by Leon Lhermitte.
A
la Tour Eiffel restaurant, with a London taxi standing by. For years, it looked like the roof of this
building was caving in; now, it is all fixed up.
The
renovation of A la Tour Eiffel retained the old features like the beautiful
wood floor and other woodwork.
A
privacy fence indicates a lovely terrace attached to the upstairs of the
renovated building. |
