We have seen a lot of art, that we cant show you...

We had 2 big museum days...

The Pompidou center on Sunday, and the Louvre today (Monday)

The pompidou center is Paris' largest modern art museum. It is HUGE... 5 stories.... With a gigantic permanent collection. 

The Louvre is, the louvre....  It has everything...

We have some good photos.. but blogger wont let me upload them.. So that will have to wait...

sorry!

Pompidou was a fun museum.. For one, it was open Sunday.. For two, it was free... After being here for 2 months, you come to value those two attributes.

There was a lot of art that I consider on the "not good" side... But a lot was really interesting..

Every time I walk into one of these places though, and look at the canvas that looks like someone threw a paint covered cat at, I seriously ask myself. "Now really.. Did this person actually think this is art? Or did he just know that, because he was famous, he just had to make any mess on canvas, and sell it for thousands of dollars."  Most of these artworks weighed heavily on the latter. 

Some though were actually pretty cool.. Like the 30 foot long wicker airplane hanging from the ceiling, full of scissors and nail files. I know.. Already sounds bad ass...  But the message was actually good...  The work was called "30,000 treasures from Airport security" (something like that... I was too busy checking out 5 tons of levitating wicker to really read the plaque...) anyhow.. It was a message about how we have created a world paranoia about weapons on planes, and what constitutes as a weapon these days..  things like nail scissors, bottle openers, etc...

I have a picture of this.. that you cant see.

There was also a big squiggly line room that you could stand in.. Like being IN art...  I also have a picture of C in this room. 

The louvre today was a different kind of art. First, we did a 1 1/2 hour tour of the basics..  The stuff that the louvre is known for. Venus di Milo, The winged Victory, Mona Lisa, The French liberation painting I refer to in my delecroix post, etc...  There was also a cool temporary exhibit that was part of the Picasso and the Masters series that is running in 3 museums here.. 

This was his tribute to delecroix, and how he took one of Delecroix paintings, and painted 12 different versions of it... 

There was also a Mantenga exhibit that is only there for a few months. Mantenga was sort of the father of perspective in painting. He was a master of his time, but in the end was seconded by the work of DaVinci and Bellini.  It was fun learning of an important artist that I had never heard of before!

Well... I hate to cut this short with no pictures, but the blog site is acting up, the internet signal is weak, and the laptop battery is dying!

OH.. before I go.. Tonight C and I "philosophized" at Le Deux Maggot cafe! We people watched and talked about projects we want to do, etc. We kept asking ourselves why we dont do that more!!

After that, we played French Monopoly..  Only in france can you get a community chest that says "Fine for drunken misconduct, 5000 francs"

I got that one.