Cultural offering in the Greater Paris region, such as the Paul Belmondo Museum and other attractions in Boulogne-Billancourt. increasingly draw gazes beyond the capital’s periphery.
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Little by little over the coming decade Paris as we think of it will spread out from the confines of its peripheral boulevards and embrace its neighboring suburbs in the creation of Grand Paris, Greater Paris.
The umbrella project is still in its debating stage with various possible plans being drawn up and discussed across municipal borders, in Paris City Hall, and in the president’s palace, yet already various lights of the future constellation of Greater Paris are being designed. Some have already been illuminated. Case in point: Boulogne-Billancourt, a comfortable southwestern suburb of Paris, between the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne, accessible by metro at the end of lines 10 and 9.
The City of Light is still far from being thought of as the Region of Light, nevertheless Boulogne-Billancourt is well on its way to being a full-fledged part of Greater Paris. One small light was switched on this week with the opening of the Paul Belmondo Museum in Boulogne-Billancourt.
The museum, housed in little neo-Classical “folly” or pleasure palace, presents the work of Paul Belmondo (1898-1982), a sculptor (primarily) who maintained a devotion to the traditions of 18th-century classicism and antiquity at a time when many of his contemporaries were exploring and creating other movements and inspirations.
Belmondo notoriously did not want a museum devoted to his work. The impulse for the museum was likely less his own fame or talent than that of his famous son, the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, who with his brother and sister donated the works in their possession to the form the base of the collection.
Presented on four levels, two open and bright, two containing dark wooden niches, the initial figures seen here hold the promise of a collection devoted to serenity and grace, as in his beautiful Marianne/La République dites d’Alger (1933). But before long it becomes evident that the figures, mostly busts, however technically skilled their execution, have instead been emptied of character, like a once elegant women who has been given anti-depressants in order to hold her pose.
The emotional void of Belmondo’s work as presented here is all the more striking in that Belmondo’s most viewed work—and deservedly so, seen by millions of visitors to Paris—is his copy (1964) of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s joyous and orgiastic La Danse that decorates the façade of Paris’s Garnier Opera. Carpeaux’s original (1865-1869) is in the Orsay Museum.
In the absence of emotion or expression, the museum does reveal Belmondo’s excellent technique in sculpture and drawing as well as in his creation of designs for medals and medallions commissioned from Belmondo by the French national mint. Several sculptures by his contemporaries complete the collection.
The Paul Belmondo Museum makes for a charming sculptural walk-through, however the museum isn’t inspiring or significant enough to warrant coming to Boulogne-Billancourt for it alone. That isn’t to say that it should be avoided but rather that a traveler should consider coming out this way with a sense of discovery for the town as a whole, including this museum.
Boulogne-Billancourt has already earned a sweet if modest place as an afternoon’s excursion into the near suburbs thanks to the presence of:
– the Musée des Années Trente, a.k.a, M-A30, a museum dedicated to arts of the 1930s;
– the Albert Kahn Museum and Gardens. The gardens are comprised of French, English, and more uniquely Japanese gardens, along with zones presenting of three types of forest. The museum holds a vast collection of images from around the world commissioned from numerous photographers and film cameramen by Albert Kahn (1860-1940). Improvements to the garden and museum are currently underway’
– lesser attractions that can nevertheless lead a visitor to wander throughout the town, including the Paul Marmottan Library, devoted to the Napoleonic interests of its founder at the end of the 19th century, a brief stroll in the Cemetery of the West (Cimetière de l’Ouest), and assorted buildings from the 1930s. An mp3 audioguide to sights and buildings from the 1930s in Boulogne-Billancourtcan be downloaded free of charge from the town’s website.
– and the usual pastry and café pleasantries of Paris’s comfortable western suburbs.
Ile Seguin
Further reasons to venture this way will appear in the coming years now that one of the Paris region’s major projects is about to start taking shape: the redevelopment of Ile Seguin, a 28.4-acre island in the Seine that from 1920 to 1992 was occupied by a Renault factory.
The Ile Seguin project, unveiled in the summer of 2010, promises an island dedicated to commerce, culture, and green space. Its current model includes a 600-800-seat concert hall for classical music, a 3000-seat hall for amplified music (+ possible seating for 2000 more on the square out front), a music conservatory, an upscale hotel, movie theaters, shopping, art galleries, the Madona Bouglione Circus (1400 seats), and the Cartier Foundation, along with acres of covered garden, with the full project slated for completion by the end of 2017.
A magazine put out by Boulogne-Billancourt’s town hall puts a question mark beside the space of a possible Museum of the History of France. The idea of such a museum is highly politicized, with each political, ideological, and intellectual camp claiming that another will use it to promote its own vision of what defines France, so the question mark is quite substantial. Nevertheless, the mere possibility of such a museum being built beyond the limits of Paris is a sign that the capital is prepared to spread its goodwill.
Paris is expanding its horizons—and so should the visitor.
© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut
Musée Paul Belmondo, 14 rue de l’Abreuvoir, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt. 01 55 18 69 01. Open Tues.-Fri. 2-6pm, Sat. and Sun. 11am-6pm. Entrance: 4.70 euros, free for under 16. Museum passes available for those also planning to visit 3 or 4 of the other museums in town.
The museum is a 15-minute walk from metro Boulogne-Jean-Jaurès. Or from that station take bus 123 to the Eglise Notre-Dame stop then walk 5 minutes from there. There’s also a free bus named SUBB within the town, with the Parc Rothschild stop being right near the museum.
Related article: For an article about recent developments on the eastern edge of Paris read Paris Rive Gauche: A 21st Century Left Bank.