Beauty and the Beast

One of our favorite "small" museums in Paris is the Musée Jacquemart-André, housed in a sumptuous "Belle Epoque" mansion, completed in 1875 on the fashionable Boulevard Haussmann for the wealthy banker, Edouard André. Together with his wife, Nélie Jacquemart, who was a well known society portrait painter, they travelled the world, amassing a large collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, furnishings and decorative arts. Their collection formed an elegant backdrop to the many lavish soirées they hosted for their friends in the Parisian society. Following the death of Nélie in 1912, the entire collection and the mansion were bequeathed to the Institut de France, with the proviso that it become a museum for everyone to appreciate what they had been so passionate about.

Today, as well as the permanent collection, temporary exhibitions offer a chance to visit this magnificent home, and to enjoy a broad selection of artists and works. Our recent visit introduced us to a painter we neither of us knew: Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916), billed as "the master of Danish painting."

 Born into a well-to-do family in Copenhagen, Hammershoi studied drawing as a young child and later attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He married his best friend's sister, Ida Ilsted, who features in many of his paintings.

Hammershoi's work has been described as "poetic", "subdued", "muted". He used a limited palette of greys, desaturated yellows, greens and black. Here, his fiancée Ida sits, somberly and soberly, against a plain background.

Hammershoi admired the American painter, James Whistler enormously. As an homage to him, he made a portrait of his own mother, Frederikke, that mirrors almost exactly Whistler's famous painting of his mother!

 

In this signature painting from 1895, "Trois Jeunes Femmes",  Hammershoi again shows Ida, this time with her two sisters-in-law. They sit so close to each other, their knees almost touching, and yet it's as though each is lost in their own world, estranged somehow. "The Poetry of Silence" is another descriptor that has been given to Hammershoi's works.

Some art lovers consider this "Cinq Portraits" to be Hammershoi's masterpiece. First of all, it's very large!  The five gentlemen were all good friends of the artist, and yet, like the the portrait of the three young women, none of them is interacting with the other. They're in their own "silent", austere world.

Even with landscapes, Hammershoi's work is spare and muted. A closer look at this painting though--showing a country scene in Zeeland--reveals a soft rythmn of three horizontal rolling hills, three horizontal stands of trees, and rows of horizontal clouds drifting back to infinity. It's peaceful, and quiet!

 

Much of Hammershoi's work focuses on interiors, simple reflections of everyday life. A woman standing near a corner of a dining room. Almost always, if there is a figure in the painting, we do not see the face. They're atmospheric, enigmatic, full of tension almost.

Sometimes these interiors are devoid of any people, this one shows just a beautiful velvet couch with two side chairs, a painting on the wall, and a shaft of brilliant sunlight to highlight the grey wall.

The painting I went back to a few times was this 1906 portrait of Ida. As usual, it's from the rear, but this time she is seated, slightly leaning back into the chair, some wisps of hair escaping from her chignon. There's no estrangement, no tension, just a soft quietness. 

Vilhelm Hammershoi died in 1916. He had been admired and celebrated during his life, not just in Scandinavia but in Europe, England and America. After his death, though, he was largely forgotten until 1990, when interest in his works found new audiences. Judging by the number of people at the Jacquemart-André Museum, he won't be forgotten again any time soon.

Another favorite small museum is the Musée du Luxembourg adjoining the delightful Luxembourg Gardens. Dating back to 1750, when it was part of the Luxembourg Palace, it was the first museum in France to open its doors to the public. In 1884 it became Paris' first museum of contemporary art, moving into its current building which was the former Palace orangery. 

As a big contrast to the muted, melancholic paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi, the current exhibition at the Luxembourg Museum is a celebration of color, joy, family, warmth: "Les Nabis et le Décor". The Nabis were a group of young artists -- Bonnard, Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, and others -- whose ambition was to create a new art, to give painting an essentially decorative role. They took inspiration from the flat and colorful images of Japanese prints from the late 19th century to create their own original style. The word "Nabi" means "prophets" in both Hebrew and Arabic.

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), was among the first in the group to associate feminine figures with scenes of nature and gardens. His "Le Grand Jardin" depicts a gentle family scene with children collecting apples, sheep and chickens milling around, another child running out of frame, against a backdrop of luxuriant green growth. The bright colors are laid flat with no depth to the perspective, attesting to Bonnard's nickname, "le Nabi très japonard", so-called because of his passion for Japanese decorative art. 

Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940), known as "le Nabi zouave" because of his sharp, pointed military beard, not only placed women in nature, but memorably captured interior scenes of women going about their daily lives. Commissioned in 1896 by the Parisian Doctor Henri Vasquez to produce a series of four decorative panels for his library, Vuillard created "Personnages dans un interior", indoor scenes saturated with bright colors and patterns that echo some of the "mille-fleurs" tapestries of the late middle ages. Between the wallpaper, the rugs, the cushions and the upholstery, the women themselves are almost completely absorbed into the decor!

Two years earlier, Vuillard painted "Les Marronniers", a view of chestnut trees growing in a square. By a strange coincidence, we have a French friend who lives in Vuillard's old apartment on the Place Adolphe Max, up near La Place Clichy.  I have often admired the view from his windows. The painting label didn't say where this scene was, but I like to think it was painted from our friend Philippe's living room windows!

A big supporter of the Nabis was the German-French Parisian art dealer, Siegfried Bing. His love of Japanese art and his Maison de l'Art Nouveau provided all kinds of openings for Nabi artists. Paul Ranson (1861-1909) undertook a commission for a series of seven panels for Mr. Bing's dining room. Ranson chose themes showing women's outdoor work.  This panel, titled "Cinq Femmes à la récolte", shows a group of women busy with their harvest. It's a landscape with soft lines, a simple chromatic scale and a lyrical rhythmic treatment of the figures. Paul Ranson was known as the Nabi even more "japonard" than Bonnard!

And then there was Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), "le Nabi à la barbe rutilante", the Nabi with the red beard! The Japanese influence on him is paramount in this panel, part of a series created for his friend Georges Lacombe's chateau near Alençon. Titled "Femmes à la source", it also reflects his interest in symbolic subjects. He was inspired by the theme of the forest, a place of magic rites, where a procession of women come down to the source of the water that feeds the well at the top, the two spaces lit by the same golden light.

Another Nabi who searched for a higher principle was Maurice Denis (1870-1943). He placed his Christian faith squarely in the centre of his work. In 1904, he received a commission for a set of decorative panels to be installed in the music salon of the Intendant of the Imperial Music Theatre of Wiesbaden, Kurt von Mutzenbecher. Denis created this preparatory set of studies which were shown at the exhibition in the form of a folding screen. The four panels represent music, dances and sacred songs in a manner worthy of adorning any place of worship.

At the same time, Denis was also active in extending his decorative art to creating wallpaper. When I first looked at this sample, I thought I was looking at caterpillars! A closer look reveals they are trains, puffing out pink smoke against a swirly pink striped background. Wallpaper for a child's bedroom perhaps. I could imagine drifting off to a deep sleep full of dreams of exciting voyages!


So much for "beauty".  Now, alas, I need to report on the "Beast" part of this blogpost. Two weekends ago, the Gilet Jaunes (the yellow vests) had their weekly Saturday demonstration against the government. This time, they went down the Champs Elysées. Unfortunately, what began four months ago as a legitimate demonstration by people who are genuinely hurting due to government policies, has now devolved into being taken over by groups who call themselves "les casseurs" (the breakers), whose sole aim is to destroy whatever they can. After smashing windows, burning newspaper kiosks, burning awnings and the interior of Le Fouquet Restaurant on the Champs-Elysées, a group of them came over, late in the day, to our neighborhood.

They swaggered down our beloved rue Montorgeuil, swinging sledgehammers, smashing ATM machines...

...our local, newly refurbished, excellent branch of the Marché U supermarket...

...and they, of course, also included bashing the windows of the newly installed MacDonald's that has opened on the corner of rue Reaumur since our last visit. None of us is happy to have a MacDo in our neighborhood, but none of us thinks it's okay to smash their windows. It's a pretty ugly reflection of the challenges facing the government.

And there's something else that's new -- a gazillion of these electric scooters ("trotinettes").  They're everywhere you look. You take out a subscription, then you can pick one up wherever you see one, ride it to where you want to go, and then leave it on the sidewalk. At least this one is propped against a building. Most of them just lie on the sidewalk, giving us poor pedestrians one more potential hazard to navigate, along with people texting or talking on their phones, not looking where they're going!! Not to mention that many of the riders of these "trotinettes" actually ride them ON the sidewalk!

Happily, at the end of the day, we always have this wonderful view to come home to, with Ste. Eustache still front and center, and, in the distance, the noble dome of the Pantheon.

And, of course, there are also signs of spring wherever you look. This luscious magnolia tree caught my eye, over at the Luxembourg Gardens.

À bientôt!

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