Art, Part Deux

Welcome back to the Urban Art Blog Museum!  I have seen so many cool examples of street art over here. Unfortunately, they don't all photograph very well, or perhaps I'm just not a good enough photographer to capture them.  At any rate, here are some of my favorites from the past couple of weeks.

First, this example of glass sculpture comes from Murano, a small island just north of Venice known for its glass blowing.

But my favorite example of street art in Venice was this set of doorbells for an apartment building.

Back in Paris, I've seen quite a few more Space Invaders.  I think this one with the paintbrush is the most interesting.

For those of you who liked the other tile mosaic from my last Art blog, here's that same piece from a distance.  I took this standing on a pedestrian bridge.

I saw a Mister Cat!  Other than Invader, this is the only tag that I have recognized since I've been here.  I think it's funny that he's on the side of the most famous fine arts school in France.

Found this awesome monkey in a little back alley on the left bank.

Should someone call the city about this?

This beautiful mosaic is a storefront in Fontainebleau.  Too bad it was closed, I would've loved to see inside.

The peaceful look on this guy's face is what makes this sculpture ironic to me.

I got a great view of this massive sidewalk painting from the sixth floor of the Pompidou Center.  Those of you who know your electronic music history might recognize those four white pipes, as they are connected to IRCAM, which is right across the street.

I've got more exciting art posts coming up from the Pompidou and the 13th arrondissement, where the mayor has invited street artists to paint the buildings. Until then, remember:

Parks & Recreation

I've been spending some time at the beautiful parks around the city because the weather has been so nice.  The first shot comes from the largest park in Paris, the Bois des Vincennes.  When Paris hosted the summer Olympics in 1900, most of the events were held at this park.  At three times the size of Central Park, I haven't even come close to seeing all of it.  And I've probably been there five or six times since it's right up the street from my apartment.  I just can't get enough of it!

In addition to an aquarium, a zoo, a cycling track, fairgrounds, several lakes, a horse track, botanical gardens, and a restaurant, there is a Buddhist Temple at the park. I have tried to explore it, but somehow the gates are always closed when I go.  I've checked their hours and even pushed the buzzer, but I can't get into this place. So instead I'll share a picture of the cool statue in front of it.

Another of my favorites is the Parc des Buttes Chaumont.  As seen in the following picture, the landscape is very eclectic.

One of the main features of the park is this Temple of Sybil, which is up on a hill on an island.

On the way up to the temple, I noticed that the wooden fences were really interesting.  Upon closer inspection, I saw that they were actually artificial, yet each section of fence was completely unique.  You can see the metal insides of the crossbeam in the foreground of this shot:

The temple, which is almost 150 years old, offers a great view of northern Paris.  These two found a perfect spot facing the Sacre Coeur.

Back at the Bois des Vincennes today, the peacocks were out.  I didn't manage to get this guy with his tail feathers spread, but he still looks pretty cool.

As a counterpart to the Temple of Sybil, the Bois des Vincennes has its own circular monument on an island: the Temple of Love.  I'll leave you with that so that you know how much I love this park and how lucky I am to be just a few blocks away.

Fon-tan-blow

The town of Fontainebleau (pronounced fon-tan-blow) is just a short train ride from downtown Paris.  It's a hot spot for mountain biking, rock climbing, and camping, but I went to see the famous palace.  When I arrived, the sun was shining, the town was buzzing, and I was hungry.  I wandered around the cobblestone streets, weaving through outdoor cafes, to find a good place to eat.  The Indian and Chinese places seemed a little uninspired.  The pizza was tempting, but just wasn't calling my name.  So I followed my nose and wound up on the sunny patio of Bistro Sud.  I ordered a margarita to drink, tuna tartar to eat, and sat back to enjoy a long lunch.  Despite being basically a pile of raw, diced tuna with fennel seeds, the food was excellent.  And the margarita was strong!  As you can see from the photo, instead of serving it with a salt rim, the gave you a little plate of olives to munch on. Was it the best restaurant in Fontainebleau?  Maybe not, but it didn't matter.  I was happy and halfway drunk as I made my way to the palace.

The first thing you notice about the palace is how un-crowded it is compared to Versailles.  After not waiting in line to get your ticket, the tour begins with a gallery of clothes and items from the last 500 years of kings and Napoleons, including these coats:

Just kidding!  Those are Michael Jackson's!  But the set up did remind me of the gallery of stage outfits at the Rock Hall.

I then made my way through a number of halls and rooms.  I found the nurseries interesting, with their really uncomfortable and unsafe looking cribs.

Like Versailles, the palace is adorned with paintings, sculptures, and architectural details, often described as being from the first or second School of Fontainebleau of the late Renaissance.  The Italian artists who worked here were responsible for bringing Mannerism to France.  A lot of their work was based on the mythology of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.  Not surprisingly, the monarchs loved to hunt here.  Notice the woman in the following fresco, with her strange little feet and head, big hairy thighs, weirdly muscular abs, and gross dogs.

We saw these winged lions everywhere in Venice as they were the symbol of St. Mark.  Here, they just hold up this heavy marble table.  I wonder if they were here represent Italy or St. Mark.  Or maybe they're just mythological.  But what are they?  Not exactly sphinxes or griffins.  Anybody have an idea?

Napoleon preferred Fontainbleau to Versailles, so he decided to make one of the former king's bedrooms into his throne room.  This is the only one in France still in its original state.

After leaving the palace, I took a long walk back to the train station.  Along the way, I noticed some really nice cars, including this McLaren.  I think these things are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The flowers are really getting pretty now in France.  I hope everyone's enjoying the spring back home.  Until next time, shadow wave goodbye!

Paris Was a Woman

Before I left for Paris I watched a really cool documentary on Netflix called Paris Was a Woman, about important women artists, writers, and bookstore owners who lived in Paris between the world wars.  It contains a bunch of archival footage and interviews, giving the street addresses of many of the women.  I decided to take a walking tour of the neighborhood where most of the activity took place, St. Germain.  Along the way I passed by the homes of Gertrude Stein, Janet Flanner, Silvia Beach, and Natalie Barney.  They were your average apartment buildings, with just one small plaque on Stein's.

I started my walk at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.  I've been to a lot of churches over the past few weeks, but this one stood out because of its strange mix of contemporary and historic art.

To see the chapels with Christian statues of saints flanked by modern sculptures that resembled female nudes was so unusual.

I also found the men in reclining postures a little weird, like this one of St. Joseph.

St. Germain is famous as being the main hangout of many famous people including Picasso, Sartre and Beauvoir, Hemmingway, and Voltaire, who is the centerpiece of this pretty little garden.

I made my way to this narrow pedestrian walkway, the Cour du Commerce-St-André, once a hive of Revolutionary activity.  The plaque above the restaurant says that Joseph-Ignace Guillotin lived there.

I ended my tour with another church, St-Sulpice, known for housing France's largest pipe organ.  Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to catch a performance.  I did, however, attempt to catch how big it is in the next picture.  It's just slightly smaller than Notre-Dame, making it the second biggest in the city.

Just as I was leaving I stumbled upon another statue of St. Peter.  Peace out!

Trivialities

I've been laying low the last few days.  I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a few images from my quotidian life.

The weather has turned warmer this week and I've been enjoying it from my little balcony. (I'll try to remember to take another picture from this same spot during my last week to see the growth on the trees.)

I've found many little conveniences around my apartment.  My favorite is the bathroom towel warmer.  Not only do I get a nice hot towel after a shower, but it's a great place to dry wet clothes.

In second place is the electric tea kettle.  Boiling water in about 90 seconds.

My little washing machine in the bathroom is so cute, but it takes about 2 hours per load.

This one is really clever.  It's a clothes line that folds up into the wall when not in use.

Why?  That's all I have to say about pink toilet paper.

This is a view from the front hall of my apartment.  The tulips came out this week and are really gorgeous.

Little burlap bags were hanging in every tree along this path.  Are they to keep the bugs away?

Evidently, Canadian geese can fly really far.

These horses weren't just pulling some romantic carriage, they were being used by the park maintenance crew.  

This little guy only came up to about my waist.  His name was Praline.

Finally, an ad from a local mall.  Interesting take on such an iconic image, eh?

Venice

Buongiorno, amici!  This post is a short picture tour of our trip to Veneto, Italia. Veneto is the name of a northern region of Italy, while Venice is its capital.  The historic city of Venice is really just one part of a much larger territory that contains several boroughs, including some on the mainland.  It's similar to New York, where people refer to Manhattan as NYC, while the other boroughs are known by their proper names.

The history of The Republic of Venice is rich and the residents seem to have a special brand of national pride.  In fact, many even speak, or at least understand, Venetian in addition to Italian.  According to one bit of graffiti I saw under a bridge, "Veneto Is Not Italy."  It sort of reminded me of living in The Republic of Texas.  Viva la repubblica, y'all!

We stayed in a small mainland town called Quarto d'Altino, which was about 35 minutes from Venice by train.  Our hotel was very old fashioned and the staff was ultra-helpful, each of them speaking several languages.  Only a few thousand people live in Quarto d'Altino and it seems that much of the town is built around tourism to Venice.  It is adorable, with little restaurants and cute homes.  The vegetation seemed lush and tropical compared to Paris.  We saw personal vineyards in backyards and the streets are lined with flowering trees, pines, gnarly vines, and even palms.  This pretty little garden was right on the main drag.

Even though we wouldn't be seeing any cars once we got to Venice, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this cute little vintage Fiat in Quarto d'Altino.  It's like an old school VW bug about the size of a Smart Car.

Our first adventure in Venice was a ride down the Grand Canal, the main transportation route that winds through the historic city.  We had a three-day pass for the vaporetti, or water buses, and that was our mode of transportation, along with walking, in town.  We saw famous mansions, hotels, and even casinos along the Grand Canal.  We stayed on the vaporetto for about 45 minutes until we reached the hottest tourist destination in Venice:  St. Mark's Basilica and Square.  We got there early in the morning and beat the crowds.  The church is stunning with its Byzantine influences, colorful marble, and medieval art.  One of my favorite sights in the square was this clock tower.  It's essentially the first digital clock in the world, as the numbers above the dial show the time, updated in five-minute increments.  It also shows the movement of the sun, the zodiac, and the phases of the moon.

Later, we wandered around the narrow alleys and footbridges of the city, getting lost and then found again.  We grabbed a sandwich for lunch, popped in a few more churches, and set sail for some of the neighboring islands.  Those of you who read my earlier post, "The Unknown Soldier," will appreciate this next shot of the cemetery island.  The green space and palm trees have quite a different effect than the concrete jungle of the Père Lachaise.  Also, you might be able to tell from the pictures, but we had beautiful, warm, sunny weather for our trip.

We found our way back to the train station that evening, passing this absinthe shop on the way.  My ghostly face above the blue bottle is not a hallucination!

The next day we arrived in Venice early because a strike shut down transportation in the region from 9am to 5pm.  Fortunately, our flight wasn't until later in the evening, so we could spend that time on the islands.  Having beaten most of the crowds that morning, we were able to look a little closer and the islands themselves.  Venice experiences high waters, or acqua alta, during high tide and other more or less inconvenient times throughout the year.  Homes and business on the ground floor show evidence of this phenomenon, as seen in the next photo.  That's not grass in their front yard, it's moss growing on concrete.   Venice may not be a viable city at some point in the future because of rising sea levels.  To add salt to the wound, the ground is actually dropping at a rate of a few millimeters per year.

One of the more charming islands we saw later that afternoon was Burano, known for its decorative lace.  The houses are very colorful making the whole island quite picturesque, so I'll leave you with this final picture.  Arrivederci!