Paris Inspired Art- Monotypes Part 3

These three monotypes are titled (from the top) "Le Marais," "Sully" and "Vosges." I purposely grouped them together because they are geographically together in Paris. Le Marais is the area where you find Place de Vosges which I spoke about before. It is the oldest planned square, quite lovely with great architecture around it. Build by Charles !! for his son, it stand the test of time and still works as a beautiful, popular square today. The Victor Hugo Museum is there as is the Sully Hotel (meaning large, grand edifice, not a place to rent rooms). You can refer back to past posts to read more about these places. I was enamored by each place and tried to encorporate the energy and feeling of the place in the work of art.

Paris Inspired Art- Monotypes Part 2

Moulin Rouge, which means Red Mill, is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris red-light district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof.

The Moulin Rouge is best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive dance by the courtesans who operated from the site, the can-can dance revue evolved into a form of entertainment of its own and led to the introduction of cabarets across Europe. The modern can-can was born as dancers (many of them failed ballet dancers with exceptional skill) were introduced to entertain the guests. The can-can that we recognise today comes directly from this period and, as the vulgarity of the dance lessened, it became renowned for its athletic and acrobatic tricks.

The Moulin Rouge lost much of its former reputation as a 'high-class brothel' and it soon became fashionable for French society to visit and see the spectacular cabarets, which have included a can-can ever since. The dance is recognizable for the long skirts with heavily frilled undergarments that the dancers wear, high kicks, hops in a circle whilst holding the other leg in the air, splits, cartwheels and other acrobatic tricks, normally accompanied by squeals and shrieks. Whilst the dance became less crude, the choreography has always tended to be a little risqué and somewhat provocative.

Today the Moulin Rouge is a tourist destination, offering musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world. Much of the romance of turn-of-the-century France is still present in the club's decor.

Images: Top: Moulin Rouge 1, monotype;and Bottom: Moulin Rouge 2, monotype capture the joy, excitement and provocativeness of the Moulin Rouge as well as the choreography and maybe even a hint of the windmill.

Paris Inspired Art- Monotypes Part 1

Capturing the excitement and energy of the streets of Paris is a daunting job. Paris is a walking city and I walked miles and miles, or should I say kilometers? Every neighborhood had its charm and flavor. In previous posts, I spoke about Marais where I stayed. Some of the energy and passion of this fabulous city is in the monotype if you look for it. The movement, the color, the application of the ink- all work toward expressing the sights and feelings of the experience of Paris in visual form, using color instead of words.

Top: Rendez-Vouz d'Octobre, monotype, bottom: Rues de Paris, monotype

Paris- Doorway to Happiness

Paris is the center of fashion, art and people-watching; a city where Chanel-clad ladies walk poodles along grand boulevards; a place where the waiters are rude but the food is amazing. Paris is all of that and more. Your love affair begins once you look beyond the closed door, open yourself to explore the backstreets of many neighborhoods, and make Paris your own.

Comfortable shoes are essential for this city of a thousand walks, landscaped gardens and cavernous galleries. Reserve your ticket for speedy access to the Louvre, which sidles up to the Jardin des Tuileries. Across the Seine on the Left Bank, take your pick from Impressionist hangout Musée d'Orsay, Notre-Dame's Gothic grandeur and Musée Rodin's Kiss sculpture. OK, you really can't leave without seeing Paris light up from the Eiffel Tower, open till midnight.

Parisians luxuriate in shopping -- bidding shopkeepers bonjour and pausing to lèche-vitrines ("lick the windows" or window shop). Saunter the boutiquey Marais for home-grown fashion, and voguish rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, home to concept store Colette, for haute-couture. Where else can you find such palatial department stores as Art Nouveau Printemps and rival Galeries Lafayette? Antiques, bric-a-brac, vintage Chanel -- it's all at Saint-Ouen's enormous weekend flea market; arrive early for bargains and stay for brunch.

Visiting Paris opens doors to every sensual pleasure. It is mysterious, magical and welcoming. I took pictures of doors I saw around the city. Many were very old. All were very interesting.

Paris- Rue des Rosiers

Rue des Rosiers is the main thoroughfare of the Marais' historic Jewish quarter. Walking down this street and seeing the facades scrawled in Hebrew and French, many of them dating to the early 20th century, you can sense the rich history here. The area is also known as the Pletzl, which means square in Yiddish.


Large Jewish communities have lived here on and off for centuries, starting in the 13th century, when the area was known as "The Old Jewry." At the constant mercy of kings who periodically expelled them from France, Jews only acquired a measure of stability in the early 19th century, under Napoléon I. 


During WWII, the neighborhood was especially targeted by the Nazi occupation and the collaborationist French police. Many schools in the area attest to that, including one that can be found off of Rue des Rosiers, at 6, Rue des Hospitalières-St.-Gervais. A commemorative plaque stands at the boy's school here. 165 students from this school were deported to concentration camps.


Today, the street and surrounding neighborhood is well-known for its delicious Middle Eastern and Yiddish/Eastern European specialties. I googled over 133 kosher restaurants in Paris. About 35 of them were around Rue des Rosiers. some of my favorites were Mivami for felafel and Israeli treats, Micky's Deli for fresh deli meat, and Korcarz for delicious dairy dishes. I also loved the authentic French food at O'you which was a taxi ride away.

Photographs above show stores in area. From top: Love Paris, Kosher Shop and Waiting for Felafel.

Versailles- Murakami at Versailles

“For a Japanese like me, the Château de Versailles is one of the greatest symbols of Western history. It is the emblem of an ambition for elegance, sophistication and art that most of us can only dream of. Of course, we are aware that the spark that set fire to the powder of the Revolution came directly from the centre of the building.

But, in many respects, everything is transmitted to us as a fantastic tale coming from a very distant kingdom. Just as French people can find it hard to recreate in their minds an accurate image of the Samurai period, the history of this palace has become diminished for us in reality.

So it is probable that the Versailles of my imagination corresponds to an exaggeration and a transformation in my mind so that it has become a kind of completely separate and unreal world. That is what I have tried to depict in this exhibition.

I am the Cheshire cat that welcomes Alice in Wonderland with its diabolic smile, and chatters away as she wanders around the Château.

With a broad smile I invite you all to discover the wonderland of Versailles.”

Takashi Murakami

How intriguing it was to see the modern work of Murakami along side the classical works of the Versailles collection. What a coup for an artist to have his work shown at Versailles!! I found it invigorating and exciting to see resin 21st century Japanese cartoon-like sculpture among the traditional sculptures. At first it was jarring, but charming. It piqued my interest and made me wonder why Murakami put his sculptures where he did. His were ornate, multi-colored and very decorative as were many of the older sculptures found in the original collection. This was not my first visit to Versailles, but it was my most interesting!!

Versailles- The City

Versailles, a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center, located in the western suburbs of the French capital, 10.6 miles from the center of Paris. Versailles is historically known for numerous treaties such as Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War and the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

From May 1682, when Louis XIV moved the court and government permanently to Versailles, until his death in September 1715, Versailles was the unofficial capital of the kingdom of France. For the next seven years, during the Régence of Philippe d'Orléans, the royal court of the young King Louis XV was in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, while the Regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal. Versailles was again the unofficial capital of France from June 1722, when Louis XV returned to Versailles, until October 1789, when a Parisian mob forced Louis XVI and the royal family to move to Paris.

King Louis XIV, son of Louis XIII, was only five years old when his father died. It was 20 years later, in 1661, when Louis XIV commenced his personal reign, that the young king showed interest in Versailles. The idea of leaving Paris, where, as a child, he had experienced first-hand the insurrection of the Fronde, had never left him. Louis XIV commissioned his architect Le Vau and his landscape architect Le Nôtre to transform the castle of his father, as well as the park, in order to accommodate the court. In 1678, after the Treaty of Nijmegen, the king decided that the court and the government would be established permanently in Versailles, which happened on 6 May 1682.

Photograph- garden at Versailles