Sacre-Coeur

This is a large format painting I have just finished of Sacre-Coeur in Paris. As I mentioned before Sacre-Coeur is at the top of the highest hill in Paris. The area is called Montmartre (the mountain of the martyr) and it is full of shops and cafes aimed at tourists. I was so excited to go there because the area is famous for the local artists who sit in their stereotypical berets, paint the street scenes, and sell canvases to tourists all day long. The souvenir I wanted the most from Paris was a small watercolor or oil painting from the top of Montmartre.

Disappointingly, I found these older Parisians, mostly gentlemen with gray hair, hard at work, creating art which was not based on observation, but only representing big tourist attractions. (In retrospect I should not have been surprised.) I just found it sad that in a city in which almost every view is beautiful, no one was painting from life. One of these older Montmartre gentlemen was applying generous amounts of glitter to a small work of art, making the Eiffel Tower silver, and the Moulin Rouge red. Perhaps the great French Impressionists would be rolling in their grave. (Or perhaps the impressionists just never thought to use glitter in their paintings of water lilies and sunflowers. Who knows?)

Here is my own piece of Montmartre, painted here in the U S of A. Although this church has been painted far more beautifully by far better artists than I, I was still very pleased to spend a few weeks working on this and remembering the food and wine of Paris. This painting is accurate in the combination of both the carnival like atmosphere at the foot of Sacre-Coeur and the serene grandeur of the church itself.

I know what everyone is thinking... this painting just needs a little bit more glitter!

Avenue de L'Opera

This is a painting I have just finished of a grand boulevard in Paris. This is the Avenue de L'Opera, which leads from the Comedie Francaise and the Place du Palais-Royal to the Opera Garnier. What I have tried to recreate is the view from the stairs in front of the Opera House down to the Comedie Francaise. It was my goal to try to recreate the beautiful shadows which had a purplie-blueish tone against the warm building facades.

Paris was so beautiful that I found just walking around to be both exhilarating and exhausting. I am someone who is easily overstimulated and the long walks from cafe to museum would leave me speechless. We stayed in an area called Les Halles ("lay-yall") which at one time had been the food market for Paris. Emile Zola wrote a whole book called "The Belly of Paris" about a convict who arrives in Les Halles after spending years on the run. The book overflows with descriptions of the gossipy fish wives, noble vegetable sellers, overweight butchers, stinky cheese vendors, etc. Much more recently in Julia Child's amazing book, "My Life in Paris" she speaks warmly about wandering the aisles and buying produce there. Sadly during a the 1970's in the name of Urban Renewal the original Les Halles was flattened and turned into a large underground mall. Being one of those New Yorkers who is angry about the loss of Pennsylvania Station it seemed appropriate that we stayed in a hotel right by Paris' identical large urban mistake.

Our trip was so full of fantastic food and fun diversions that I cannot accurately hope to recapture it on a blog. Highlights included visits to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milos, as well as trips to Versilles, the catacombs, and Notre Dame. In one day alone we took a boat trip on the Seine, looked for lunch on one of the grand Avenues only to stumble upon the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees. A quick visit to the Arc was followed by a long walk through Pigalle and Montmarte to Sacre-Coeur. The long winding walk back to Les Halles brought me past the Covered Passageways, or narrow streets of shops hidden within irregular city blocks and covered with piqued glass ceilings. A quick walk past the Folies-Bergere took me to our local boulangerie where the bread was still warm. Upon arriving back in the hotel room we would eat warm bread, watch dubbed television shows and discuss dinner plans. We cannot wait to return.