after an informative morning, we had some crepes for lunch. they were small.
ryan's was just ham in a pancake. he said it wasn't very good. warm cold cuts are gross...
then we went to the musee rodin. we had to go here, because a very dear and very beautiful friend of mine got married in these gardens a year and a half ago. her pictures were so stunning, we had to see the museum in real life!
we're thinking.
amber, do you recognize this?
students having an art lesson. they're sketching the nude. they're about 8-9. that's france.
okay, let me tell you a little bit about auguste rodin. you may have already guessed/known that he was a sculptor (duh). well, he was the father of modern sculpture, though he didn't think his work was all that avant garde. he sculpted in clay and then cast them in bronze (or had assistants cast them). he was not universally well-received in his own time. here are some of my favorites from the museum:
tete de saint john baptiste sur un plat (the head of st john the baptist on a platter)
bust of victor hugo
first version of the burghers of calais. click that link. you should read about this story.
l'illusion, soeur d'Icare (the illusion, sister of icarus)
see? my camera died in the garden, so this is the best shot i have. it was really unfortunate.
la petite fee des eaux (the little water fairy). i loved this one.
van gogh! ryan didn't believe that it was a van gogh until i proved it. but vincent painted this portrait of his pal rodin, and the facts don't lie.
a dance movment. (i don't have the french title, sorry)
le femme-poisson (the fish woman, like you couldn't tell)
the kiss. rodin sculpted this early in his career, and though it was very popular (one of his few early works to be well-regarded), he later dismissed it as sentimental tripe. haha.
les trois ombres (the three shades)
and that's what he looked like for reallys, not just how vinny van gogh imagined him.
there's one more thing about rodin that i should tell you: he's kind of a dirtbag. he had a life-long partner, rose beuret, with whom he had a child, but whom he did not marry until 2 weeks before she died. meanwhile, when he was 43, he taught a course in sculpture. in that class was the 18 year old camille claudel. can you guess what'll happen next? they began a tumultuous affair, of course. camille was very talented herself, though not the most stable of individuals.
she wanted rodin to leave rose. rodin did not. instead, he made a sculpture about it:
this was the first draft. camille's the young girl kneeling, rodin is the man in the middle, and an elderly woman (rose) is taking him away.
but then he went in this direction. same basic theme, yet... much stronger.
poor camille! though she was a fiercely talented sculptress herself, she couldn't escape from rodin's larger reputation. he never left his wife for her, forced her to have an abortion she didn't want, and she ended up spending the last 30 years of her life in a psychiatric hospital. PLUS, there's some speculation that rodin stole some of her ideas. rough break.
but she made some lovely art:
la valse (the waltz)
vertumne et pomona (vertumnus and pomona)
tete de jeune fille au chignon ( head of a girl with a bun)
bust of rodin.
after a little rest in the hotel (some of us threw up last night, and are denying their sickness because it's not fair to be ill in paris), we went to dinner.
mine. no more french onion soup for me, though. this was better than last night.
ryan's poulet roti! his favorite!
oh, and i can see russia from my hotel.
notre dame and musee orsay tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment