There’s a fall ritual in Paris by which inhabitants of the city and its more upscale suburbs seek redemption from the sloth and nudity of summer by worshiping in the numerous temples of art and culture in the City of Light.
In September and October, wearing the last vestiges of their summer tan, Parisians re-enter the hallow grounds of the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the Orsay and other such temples of art and culture.
The faithful are joined in queue by inhabitants of more distant suburbs and cities and by visitors from foreign nations anxious, they, too, to receive the grace of art and the glorious sensation, upon exit, that they have witnessed and felt and perhaps even understood the profound depths of Edvard Munch or of Cézanne or of the relationship between Giacometti and the Etruscans.
Here are the wheres and the whens of this cult:
Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso—the Adventure of the Steins at the Grand Palais, Oct. 5-Jan. 16.
Beauty, Morality and Pleasure in Oscar Wilde’s England at the Orsay, Sept. 13-Jan. 12.
Edvard Munch, the Modern Eye at the Pompidou Center, Sept. 21-Jan. 9.
Fra Angelico and the Masters of Light at the Jacquemart-André Museum, Sept. 23-Jan. 16.
The Forbidden City, Emperors of China and Kings of France at the Louvre, Sept. 29-Jan. 9.
Of Toys and Men at the Grand Palais, Sept. 14-Jan. 23.
Giacometti and the Etruscans at the Pinacothèque de Paris, Sept. 15-Jan. 8.
Cézanne and Paris at the Luxembourg Museum, Oct. 10-Feb. 26.
Pompeii, an Art of Living at the Maillol Museum, Sept. 21-Feb. 12.
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Oct. 18-Jan. 8.
(c) 2011, Gary Lee Kraut