Les Soldes and Musee d'Orsay

Wednesday June 25 was the start of the Paris sales.  For those who don't know, Paris has two set periods of the year for sales.  This year, the summer sales are from June 25 to July 29.  Most stores have from 30-50% at the beginning of the sales period, and as stock goes down, the discounts increase to their end.  The time to take advantage of the most choice in sizes is at the beginning of the sale period.

It was a beautiful day for being outside (about 24C and another day of sun).  We headed out late morning and first picked up a tuna sandwich on a delicious baguette from Eric Kayser bakery on Rue Monge.  In their cooler, we noticed coke bottles with people's names on them. We had to get Alain a bottle which said "partagez un Coca-Cola light avec Alain" (share a Coke light with Alain)!

Share a coke with ALAIN!

We then stopped to get some brebis (sheep cheese, which I can eat) at one of the best cheese stores in Paris- Laurent Dubois (who is a Meilleur Ouvrier de France- the highest honour for a food purveyor).

Laurent Dubois- one of the best

Most wonderful looking cheese

Our first place to stop for the sales was Emma et Juju which only sells the Majestic line of clothes (mostly t-shirts).  I bought a lovely linen striped top at 50% off.

First purchase

Almost every store we passed had a "Soldes" sign and often an innovative window display.  We walked through the Saint-Germain area checking out a number of our favourite stores.  Lots of people seem to be taking time off work to go to the sales.

Sales at Lilith

Just a great soldes window

One of my favourite chocolate stores (no sale here- but great chocolate bars)

We stopped for a coffee at Cafe Richard, which sells excellent coffee beans that Alain buys to make coffee at the apartment.  We then headed down to Quai Voltaire to check out the new Acne store and then went to the nearby Dries Van Noten store (after the exhibit at the Decorative Arts Museum, we wanted to see if there was anything on sale that we could afford).  Unfortunately, they were out of T-shirts in Alain's size (small's go very quickly in Paris).  I bought a long sleeveless T that I can wear as a dress.  We then headed across the river to the Marais.  We passed one of the original Metro entrances designed by Hector Guimard (Chatelet).

One of the remaining art nouveau entrances to the Metro by Hector Guimard

There is a wonderful Algerian bakery on Rue Saint Honore that has beautiful displays.  We bought a couple of treats for after dinner.

La Baque de Kenza

Alain bought a very cool jacket at Edited Black (Comme des Garcons) a small shop in the Haut Marais.  We then went to a store  (Anaim) where I bought some clothes last year.  A purchase was made.  The owner Jihye An designs her own shoe line and carries a selection of innovative clothes from Korea. Her selection and her window displays are great.  Christiane, who works there, remembered us from last year.

At Anaim with Christiane on my right and Jihye An, the owner, on my left

We walked over to Acne, where we ran into Max, a very nice Australian who had worked at their Palais Royal store where we met him in 2011.  He now works in their office and is doing very well.  He greeted us warmly and gave us some restaurant recommendations.  We then went for an apero at a nearby restaurant/bar called le Mary Celeste.  It was a great buzzy place.  Alain and I had a glass of white wine and shared a small plate of roasted cauliflower.

Outside of le Mary Celeste

Big bar is the centre piece of the room

We returned to the apartment for an Alain home-cooked fish dinner.

Thursday June 26 also started as a wonderful warm sunny day (high 24C).  We took the Metro to a stop on the right bank and then walked back through the Tuileries Gardens to the Musee D'Orsay.

Aristide Mailloil sculpture

There is an amusement park that is set up this time of year in the Gardens, with a huge ferris wheel.

Huge ferris wheel at Tuileries Gardens

There is a lovely view of the Musee D'Orsay from the right bank.

                                                        View of the Musee D'Orsay from across the Seine

The exhibit we were going to see was entitled: Van Gogh/Artaud, Le suicide de la societe, which was translated as "Van Gogh/Artaud, Suicided by Society".

                                                                                   Poster for exhibit

                                                                        Inside the Musee

The exhibit was based on an 1947 essay written by Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) entitled "Van Gogh, A Man Suicided by Society".  Artaud was  a poet, writer, actor and painter, who had spent nine years in psychiatric hospitals, often undergoing electric shock treatment.  In late 1946, his friend Pierre Loeb (1997-1961), founder of Gallery Pierre, suggested he write an article about Van Gogh, who had been deemed to be mad.  Loeb thought that Artaud would have some unique insights.  Artaud was hesitant but then decided to write the essay after becoming enraged by a book by a psychiatrist Francois-Joachim Beer entitled "Du Demon de Van Gogh" (Van Gogh's demon), which coincided with a 1947 Van Gogh exhibit at L'Orangerie in Paris.  Beer had portrayed Van Gogh as a mad degenerate.  Artaud was incensed and his essay took the position that Van Gogh had been driven to his suicide by public indifference to his work and the "unspeakable truths" he was trying to say.  Artaud spoke of his "convulsive" but carefully planned brushstrokes.

The exhibit also referenced a number of the 659 letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from 1872-1890.

Van Gogh (1853-1890) was born in Zundert Netherlands.  He started to draw as a child, but only turned to painting in 1881.  He had lived in Paris with his brother Theo from 1886-88, but then moved to Arles in 1888 with the hope of establishing an utopian art community.  In the fall of 1888, he persuaded Paul Gauguin to come and stay with him at his Yellow House in Arles.  On December 23, 1888, they had a bad quarrel and afterwards Van Gogh sliced a piece of his own ear off.  Gauguin left, and Van Gogh was subsequently hospitalized in Saint- Remy (32 km from Arles) from May 1889-May 1890.   In May 1890, Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise (just outside of Paris) to be closer to his brother Theo and to be near Dr. Paul Gachet, a homeopath, who was treating him.  Van Gogh continued to paint until he shot himself in the stomach on July 27, 1890.  He died two days later on July 29, 1890.  Artaud blamed the doctor, in part, for Van Gogh's death.

There was a wonderful series of self-portraits that opened the exhibit. Artaud, who had visited the 1947 exhibit, spoke of Van Gogh's piercing eyes.

Last of this series- broader brushstrokes

Le Pere Tanguy 1887

The following painting of Gauguin's chair has a companion piece of Van Gogh's chair, which was not in the exhibit.  The chair has copies of books that Gauguin liked to read and a solitary candle.  Artaud, in his essay, said that they had two completely different approaches to painting- Gauguin enlarged things to myth, while Van Gogh deduces myth from everyday items.

Gauguin's chair 1888

Le Doceur Gachet 1990

Le Pont de Langlois a Arles, May 1888

Jardin d'hôpital - Saint-Remy 1889

Van Gogh did not make many friends in Arles, but he did have a friend in the postmaster.  Van Gogh did a wonderful portrait of his wife, below.

Augustine Roulin (La Berceuse, February 1989

Entre du jardin public a Arles, October 1988

Le Chambre de Van Gogh a Arles, Saint-Remy-de-Provence, September 1989

Storm clouds often featured in his works

Champ de blé avec bleuets, July 1990 (Auvers-Sur-Oise)

La Nuit Etoilee 1988, Arles  (Van Gogh used just yellow and blue in this picture)

There were also a number of drawings by Van Gogh.  In one of his letters to Theo in 1882, cited by Arnaud, Van Gogh says: "Drawing is working one's way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through the wall?  Since hammering on it doesn't help at all, in my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently."

In one of his last letters on July 23, 1990, he wrote to Theo: " I risk my life for my work and my reason has half foundered in it."

There was a separate section of photos of Artaud, videos from some of his acting roles and then a wall of his drawings.  A number of the photos were taken by Denise Colomb (1902-2004) (sister of Pierre Loeb) near the end of his life, when he was suffering from cancer.  Artaud had been hospitalized from 1937-43 in one location where he underwent electro-shock treatment.  His friends had him moved to another hospital in unoccupied France from 1943-46, where his doctor recommended art therapy.  Artaud died of an overdose in 1948 after being diagnosed with inoperable rectal cancer.

Denise Colomb,  Artaud 1947

Denise Colomb - La chambre d'Artaud a Ivry, 1947

On the left- Artaud bound with a firing squad shooting at him

Autoportrait December 17, 1946

The concept for the show was quite interesting.  The 40 Van Gogh paintings and additional drawings, mostly from the last two years of his life were beautiful.  Van Gogh was extremely prolific during his brief 10 year painting career.  It is interesting to note that he only sold one painting during his lifetime.

Some of the commentary by Antonin Artaud caused one to look at his paintings a bit more closely for those "convulsive swirls" and the storm clouds brewing beneath the calm. Artaud also stressed how focussed Van Gogh was in his work.

After the exhibit, we grabbed a sandwich at Aux Delice de Manon on Rue Saint-Honore.  Alain stopped for his fix of pain au chocolate pistache at Laduree and we walked back towards the Marais checking out some stores along the way.  We had an apero at Tres Honore, where we had stopped a few days ago and then carried on into the Marais.  We ran into the guardien (superintendent) of the building we had rented an apartment in three years ago. [We had also run into him outside the apartment building a few days ago].  He always greets us very warmly (he was the owner of Felix, the courtyard cat, who has passed away).

We stopped for a cafe at a small library/cafe on Rue Charlot called Caffe Marcovaldo.  Alain had his usual noisette (espresso with a touch of milk) and I had an espresso.

Alain's noisette

Alain purchased a pair of great shoes on sale at Philippe Zorzetto on Rue Vieille du Temple.  We had noted that Men's Fashion week in Paris started on Wednesday and runs through the weekend.  There are a number of pop-up showrooms in the Marais, often in art galleries.  Lots of cool looking people wandering about.

Too cool

We continued our wander, though a wind came up and the sky began to look ominous.  We headed back across the Seine.  At about 8:30 p.m., it started to lightly rain when we were just a few blocks from our apartment.  We got back just in time as it rained quite heavily for about 20 minutes afterwards.  It then cleared.  We had dinner at the apartment.  We seem to be averaging over 20,000 steps a day ( about 15 km a day)-- getting a bit tired as we near the end of our stay in Paris.