Saturday 19 September: Art in Paris

When I lived in Europe my ideal day out was in an art gallery. I would take a day of annual leave just to visit an exhibition. When people ask me do I miss London, or England I normally tell them that there are some things I miss indeed: family, friends and the museums & art exhibitions. While Melbourne does have exhibitions, it’s not the same, and my passion if not asleep then drowsy.

Today it spasmodically awoke.

Still the ethos was to show Indigo things. Since we did not have to check out of the hotel until midday, we chose to get to the Lourve and spend a couple of hours there. We suggested some areas of the Louvre that Indigo might wish to go to, and respected her choice not to see the Mona Lisa. Instead we went to the Egyptian and Assyrian sections.

She seemed to really enjoy these. Rather than pushing information on her, we tried to be more passive by answering her questions when asked, so we talked about mummies, all the animals the Egyptians praised and their writing.

However, it turned out that the Louvre had a special exhibition on about the great Venetian painters, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. So we bought tickets.

Sometime in about 2003 ‘The Late Review’ on BBC TV ran a review of an exhibition of Titian. I thought the reviewers’ comments pretentious when they said that you could really see where Van Gogh and a deluge of other great artists got their inspiration for. I went to the exhibition and was spellbound. Even to my untrained eye the reviewers’ comments could be seen to be true. It was the best exhibition focussing on one painter that I’ve ever been to.

So to walk into rooms of Titians had the effect of sending my mind back to another era when I lived in London. I was hardly in the present at all. Indigo distracted me the most, and in a nice way. She started taking an interest in a pictures of the Last Supper. They had works on this subject by Tinteretto, Titian and Veronese side by side. I had to explain what the last supper was in the Bible, some stuff about symbolism in painting (Jesus’ head often having a halo of light about his head to help illiterate viewers understand who was who), the meaning of the glass of wine. We also talked about the fact that Jesus is always depicted as a white guy with long hair and a beard, when in fact nobody has a clue what he looked like. That got Indigo talking about her views on God and such.

We left, checked out of the hotel. We had another 9 hours before catching our overnight train. What to fill it with?

A quick look at my guide (so out of date that prices are denominated in French Francs) said we were near the George Pompidiou Centre and it’s Museum of Modern Art. So we popped down, stopping off at Starbucks where I despratel;y tried to get a decent coffee.

The first floor of the museum, populated to temporary thematic exhibitions was simply stunning. My mind awoke. I was buzzing. And Indigo was buzzing too and that was feeding my energy. Feminism in modern art was just a starter and was great. Me and Indigo watched a film on Semiotics in the Kitchen, before moving on to watching a 15 minute film of fluorescent light bulbs falling out of their ceiling fixtures one by one until the room was dark. It was at once tense, funny, boring, and totally captivating. More and more pieces, none by anyone I’d heard of just thrilled. This was what I loved about the art thing in London, this was what I’d not had while in Melbourne.

But Pat was desperate to go to the next floor with its Kandinsky’s. In the end I never actually got to see them – there were too many paintings. We were greeted upstairs by Rothcko – check, Pollock – check, Matisse – check, Picasso – yawn – check. The usual dress circle of pre-1950 20th century art. Where my mind by buzzing the floor below, I was bored senseless upstairs. My mind was switched off again.

We dined in the open air restaurant in the Pompideiu Centre. A mass of Norweigian smoked salmon for me, and two large slabs of foie gras for Pat. So much that she gave me half of hers. So, the tally is two days in Paris and two foie gras sessions for Neil.

Got the train to take Indigo to the Arc de Triomphe which she remained interested in for a whole 2 minutes. I had to explain why it was so famous, and ended up talking about wars and triumphal marches again. We split so Pat and Indigo could go shopping down the Champs-Elysee, and I could see whether Le Caves Taillevent was still trading.

Le Caves Taillevent is a wine shop in the 8th Arrondisement and is alleged to stock half a million bottles of wine from a selection of over 1,100 types. I was on a mission. Wine Library TV carried a review of wines from Lirac, a sub-region of Rhone, which were apparently the thing to have in the 1950’s but were not well known now, though really good and cheap. I’d not been able to buy any in Melbourne or Hong Kong. Well, I’ve got one now, but it was the only one this shop had, so I’m not optimistic. If a major specialist in France doesn’t stock much of the stuff I wonder how good it can be. I also bought more St Joseph and a Vacqueyras which he highly recommended. God, I’m an Rhone-Head.

And so onto Gare d’Austerlitz and the overnight train to Biarritz. Indigo was totally pumped. First class, where I am writing this now, frankly looks a bit daggy. Just a vending machine for food selling crisps and junk .