Skip to main content

June 24

From Vivaldi  to  Vincent (Van Gogh)

THE VIVALDI PART
Rewind  a bit back to Saturday, June 22nd. We had dinner at home and then  at 8:00 took a walk down the Seine to Saint Chapelle. Last time we were there in 2000, it was Christmas week and we froze waiting in line for two hours to see the chapel. This time, we simply stood in line to buy tickets to be treated to a six piece string classical concert in this magnificent setting. 
The concert was Vivaldi...not just Vivaldi but theFour Seasons.....not just the Four Seasons but played spectacularly....not just played well but in a stirring setting.  The last time the music and its venue engendered  such magic was in 1977 seeing the Vienna Boys Choir sing in the 12th century Cathedral in Durham, England.
The lead violin played with the speed and finesse of the finest rendition of the Flight of the Bumblebee. The light was still subtle through the stained glass though the chapel was dark.  The entire audience was mesmerized (well maybe not Steve but he liked it).  And probably for the umpteenth time in the past three weeks I pinched myself to make sure it was all real.

SKIPPING AHEAD TO VAN GOGH (will fill you in on  our Sunday of St. Ouen, jazz and Pierre Cardin on a light news date in the future)
This was the day to see if any of the Paris art had rubbed off on us. Taking our sketchpads and six pencils, we hopped on the Metro, 2 lines, 10 stops total, and arrived at the Academie de Port-Royal for our open studio session. 

I  guess we were hoping for some instruction, encouragement or HELP but instead were squarely in the middle of a studio of artists, a passel of easels and a very thin ballet dancer nude live model and her green turbaned, eyeliner wearing violin playing model partner ( not nude, only barefoot). For the next two hours they together struck poses from simple to elegant to acrobatic, changing poses every few minutes and not leaving much time to get their forms onto paper.  

It was challenging to say the least, and demoralizing  at best if you stole a glance at your neighbor's sketchpad. Most in the studio, with a few strokes of their pencil or charcoal or ink, captured the muscle and proportion of the nude female beautifully. Although I felt like I got the hang of it as we went along, towards the end of the hours Steve was sketching the stool instead.


Needless to say we opted for a great lunch at Yard  instead of a second studio session.  Lunch was lovely, we are eating way too much meat let alone tartare, and the bottle of wine was great.
Food stopping/shopping on the way home for the requisite baguette and the almond croissant treat for tomorrow's breakfast. An evening stroll along the Seine was to be watching a fireworks spectacle but alas, the fallacy of Internet info, and it was not true.  We passed on Berthillon's glaces in the 50degree night air but found instead Village St. Paul, a small warren of streets and shops with a 12th century medieval wall to which we will return another day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#8 - Two whirlwind days ( and the WTF Answer )

We've literally got about 30 hours to see as much of Sydney as we can before we meet up with our friends on Wednesday at 6PM. And we vow to make the most of it. I've got a list of about six musts that I let Steve vet and although he doesn't tick anything off, I know he's thinking that I am making a killer schedule.  We start off the day with a coffee and the first Opera House tour at 9AM. The structure is surely impressive, the tour not as much, but since there is no Opera or symphony while we are right at the Rocks, the tour is the best we can do to peek inside. The architect was Danish, and the design shows it - from the two-woods paneled concert hall that the Kimmel Center is surely a total knock-off of, to the incredibly comfortable sleek seating that has stood the test of time, like all Danish design.                                             ...
1 comment
Read more

#105 - Aix, Paris’s 21sr Arrondisement

After a good night sleep we awoke to another sunny, blue sky day, which here also means almost no humidity and no frizzy hair (this might qualify for reason #4 to live here). So far we have stayed at hotels where breakfast is not included, which we actually prefer. It leaves more room for lunch and vin.  In Valbonne we had an electric kettle and some Nescafe, still wildly popular in Europe, which could hold me over for an hour or so until we had a proper cafe stop. But here in Aix, a kettle, mugs and nothing else. So we were up and out a bit quicker this morning for our cafes and a shared pan chocolate (a rectangular croissant-like pastry filled with chocolate, but you knew that).      We headed to the main tourist drag, Cours Mirabeau, to La Rotunda fountain, and to the TI to get the requisite walking maps and info. It was still too early for the upscale shops or musee so we did a bit of shopping to find the right adapter to charge our devices, an...
Post a Comment
Read more