No School Means Museums

Thursday was the anniversary of Armistice Day; and thus, a government holiday here in France. I didn’t have school, so I slept late (of course) and then saw some museum exhibits with my friends .

The first was the Fragonard Perfume Museum. I’m not sure it really qualifies as museum. They had a small exhibit of old perfume bottles, along with some information (in French) about the history of perfume. The gift shop was larger than the museum, but that’s not always a bad thing.

Next we visited Galleries Lafayette and Le Printemps, two very famous department stores. Galleries Lafayette holds the title of “Largest Department Store in Europe”. They were both beautiful and held beautiful (read: expensive) things, that I have about as much chance of owning as anything in an actual museum.

After this, we went to the Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysees. The Grand Palais was built as an exhibition hall for the 1900s World’s Fair. It still holds special exhibitions today. First, we went to the Marie Antoinette exhibit. Portraits of Marie Antoinette and her family were on display along with some of her furniture from Versailles. The most interesting part was the final room concerning the last days of her life. There were some pieces of furniture from her prison apartments. These were such a contrast to what she had a t Versailles. Also, there were some really hilarious political cartoons created by her contemporaries. They gave you a sense of really how much she was hated. On the wall opposite the disparaging political cartoons, was a wall of quotes from Marie Antoinette and her family. This provided an interesting contrast, and a much more human view. This was all in French, so I definitely didn’t understand it all. Overall, I appreciated the exhibit for providing an insight into the various ways of looking at this compelling historical figure. Plus, the furniture from the Versailles days was kick-ass.

Next, we went to another exhibit at the Grand Palais. This one was an installation piece from the American artist Richard Serra. The intention of this piece was to involve both the viewer and the environment in the art. The piece featured five stone walls, in a line, leaning at different angles, placed in the Grand Palais exhibition hall. If you were standing at one end of the exhibition hall, you could only see two or three of the walls, but as you walled towards the other end of the hall the other walls were revealed. If you were standing up close to the wall, you wouldn’t know that it was tilting, you could only see it by backing up. Also, the structure of the building and the sun, created some pretty amazing shadows. I definitely enjoyed seeing this, but I still haven’t decided if I think the idea behind it is a bunch of bull shit. But, I am an English Major. Good bull shit has a very dear place in my heart.