Art moderne?

"I stayed three weeks in Paris, fell in love with city, and decided I was born to live in Paris" -Ed Bradley

This post is for June 13, 2013

The day started out fairly boring with logistical things needed to be done at the ACCENT center. We did a review of the centers involvement with our trip and they gave us a snack as a sendoff.

We then headed down the rainy streets of Paris to La Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou. Which is a center for modern history. It is a very cool building with the escalators on the outside that make it look like different tubes are attached to the side of the building. I have to be honest here and say that the Pompidou was a pleasant surprise to me because I am not that into modern art. My feeling is that conceptual or kinetic art need an audience to be art and modern art need a plaque next to in and say its art. They need something more than the pieces of "classic" art that are displayed in the Louvre or the Orsay in order to be art in my mind. 

At the Pompidou I did find a piece that I really felt connected to, it sorta leaned more on the classical side of the modern art they had on display but that is apparently what I like. It was the painting Le peintre dans son atelier by Henri Matisse in 1916-1917. 

I love the fact that the man and the painter is the one who is unclothed. That is so far from just about every other painting that I have seen on this trip. The man is naked and in not a sexual or blatant way he just kinda is. I also love the way that the woman is dressed. And not only is she dressed but she seems to be swaddled by her dress. She is fully clothed and yet she is the focus of the painters painting. She is the muse of the painter and she is not some naked beautiful woman. She sits in her chair and just is the object of the painter's attention. This woman doesn't have to be some archetype to be the object of attention of a man. This shows that any woman can be the object of beauty. Nakedness does not equal beauty. 

After doing way too much over analysis of modern art I went across the plaza to have dinner and then go to the shops along the Seine to get myself a crepe. I walked along the Seine for possibly the last time and took in the night life around me. I then had an exciting night of packing my luggage as tomorrow was my last full day in Pairs before I left. It wasn't hard packing I just didn't want to because that meant that I was leaving and I never wanted to do that. 

Jusqu'à demain

Bisous Janice

La Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou.

View riding up the esclator tube.

Walked up to this and thought "Freaking dadaism!" 

and I was right "Mechanic Head" by Raoul Hausmann  

Yep so that's art

And this was a cool metal thing t

hat shone pretty light through its holes.