Walking in Paris - Street Art Edition

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Paris was the art. A long time fan of Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction and Expressionism I could not wait to delve into the museums to finally see first hand the art I have admired for so long from books and the interweb. Are the works of Klee, Matisse, Cezanne, Monet, Degas, Modigliani, Picasso, Miro, and Kandinsky as miraculous in person as they seem? The answer is, of course they are.

But in pursuit of the sublime we found ourselves continually charmed by the street art that we encountered wherever we went.

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The artist at work in Montmartre.
































































A trapeze artist swinging from a water pipe.

























We happened upon this 3 story high tree and accompanying poem in the Latin Quarter. I fed the words into 6 different web translators and combined the results to come up with this (paraphrased) translation:



Pay attention
to this great tree
because through him, it may be enough.

Even though it is torn and dirty,
this tree of the street,
it encompasses all of nature, the sky,
the bird that settles here, the wind that moves through it,
the sun which greets it with the same hope in spite of death

Philosopher
if perchance you have such a tree on your street
your thoughts will be less troubled,
your eyes more free,
your hand less drawn to the dark.























































































































This was a great bit of art almost wasted on a bus shelter. The artist took the iconic imagery created by Toulouse-Lautrec and overlaid it with a collage of fashion shots from a 1950s clothing catalog.

































































These next two shots are from a photo exhibit along the Seine. While not technically 'street art' it was refreshing to see art embraced and displayed in a public setting.




















I totally dig the center image of the female form expressed in welder's beads, though I can imagine Americans freaking out over such pictures should anyone dare try to display them in public in this country. How did we devolve to such prudery and fear of our own human vessels?








The following are from a booth at a flea market. I don't know if the seller was also the artist, but the pieces all have the same stylized look to them with a thematic mockery of Maoism. I love the bawling schoolgirl and femme fatale with the MIG-25 jet soaring over her shoulder

























































Graffiti on the Place de la Concorde, near the Musée de l'Orangerie. The Monet exhibit therein was amazing, but so was this bit of hand painted typography. Much thought went into this, which translates roughly into: to be astonished is an honor.

and so it is...

Walking In Paris -- That Damn Tower

First, a math lesson. They never taught me this in school (not that I went to many classes anyway) but apparently 25 years of marriage is the algebraic equivalent of 10 days in Paris. And since equations must always balance, you can't have one without the other. Leastways, that's the way Mary explained it to me. So we did some walking in Paris. First stop, Eiffel's Tower, home of the world's biggest fish fry


(William Morris, 1834-96, British poet, designer, artist, and typographer was one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts movement.)

During Morris’s last visit to Paris he spent much of his time in the restaurant of the Eiffel Tower, either eating or writing. When a friend observed that he must be much impressed with the tower to spend so much time there, he retorted, “Impressed!? I remain here because it is the only place in Paris where I can avoid seeing the damn thing.”

—The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes, 1985, ed. Clifton Fadiman, p. 413

As Morris noted, it is difficult to avoid that "damn tower" as we took to calling it.

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NB: No, Jon is not wearing a beret--he has been wearing his chef hat for over 3 years (and even removing it sometimes when he showers).






































































Upon first arriving at the tower, you will be offered a key chain for 1 Euro. As you proceed under the tower and through to the other side the price quickly drops to 2 for 1 Euro and finally 3 for a Euro among the more desperate sellers of gimcracks. By day 4, when walking past Notre Dame, the price was 5 per Euro.














We could not get the shot we wanted because they are doing some reconstruction work and have a big ole tarp strung across the middle. Maybe next time...

















































Would you like some tush with your tower?

















It's actually much smaller than the French make it out to be.