Paris Art

I am not the sort of person who ticks off the countries of the world. If I have travelled to the other side of the globe on a couple of occasions and visited a European capital not noted today for its architecture and art galleries, it is only because I have had children working there. What I enjoy is creativity, so three days once more in Paris is a great delight. My first port of call was the Musée Jacquemart-André where there was an exhibition of Spanish paintings from the collection of Pérez Simón. Each section was titled and the part Le regard tourne vers Dieu had appropriately enough many pupils placed in the right or left corner of the eyes. Too many for my taste and despite works by EL Greco, Ribera and Murillo, only a Goya portrait in another category held much interest for me. As far as les toiles de maitres were concerned, the permanent collection was much more rewarding.

The Simón collection came into its own with the modern masters. There was for me a rare Dalì – one that I actually liked, apparently a ballet design for Romeo and Juliet – although another work by this artist was one of the most awful images I have ever seen committed to canvas. There were also bronzes which repeated ideas from his paintings, melting watches and people with drawers (the kind you pull out rather than pull off).

An interesting linocut by Picasso gave me the correct French term (linogravure) to use when explaining to French friends the kind of prints I most often make these days and there were wonderful works by the great twentieth century innovator. A drawing in water colour, Le Déjeuner du Pauvre (1903) seemed better to me than the Blue Period paintings which now appear a bit sentimental and Nature morte au pigeon (1919) which I have never seen reproduced was a beautiful painting with low intensity oranges and beiges and soft greys. It was a work in the genre developed by that great Poussin of the still life, Joan Gris, who was also represented. A particularly fine Mirò from 1944 Femmes devant la lune with the artist’s idiosyncratic shapes on a luminous background was a pastel and gouache on canvas.

The Musée Carnavalet is not an art gallery but a museum of the history of Paris and is well worth a visit. It has lots of delightful genre paintings and portraits of notables including an architectural hero of mine, Claude Nicolas Ledoux. The latter was imprisoned during the Terror as was the painter of architectural capriccios Hubert Robert. Both were lucky to escape the guillotine. Robert continued to paint during his internment in the Temple. Like all museums run by the Mairie de Paris, the Carnavalet is free. The only disappointment was the very poor selection of postcards. I would have loved a memento of Les Parisiens tirant le diable par la queue by Jean Weber (1864-1928) and one of Robert’s prison works.

Another Mairie de Paris museum I tried to visit was the Musée Zadkine which unfortunately was closed due to a forthcoming exhibition. Instead I went to see the Fondation Dubuffet, not free but worthwhile. When interest moved from France’s rather feeble Tachiste Movement to American Expressionism, Jean Dubuffet seemed to be the last late twentieth century French painter of significance.