Corinne LaBalme has selected some of the most notable shows of the 2017 summer art and exhibition season.

Aix-en-Provence. At the Hôtel de Caumont, a mansion representing Aix’s most sublime example of 18th-century aristocratic architecture: Alfred Sisley. June 10 to October 15; Giovanni da Rimini. June 14 to October 8. Fondation Vasarely: Vera Rôhm. June 26 to August 31.

Giverny. To prolong a stay in Monetland or not, that is the question. Musée des Impressionismes. Tintamarre ! Musical Instruments in Art (1860-1910). Through July 2. Henri Manguin. July 14 to November 5.

Grenoble. Before or after a stroll through the valleys or a hike in the Alps. Musée de Grenoble. Henri Fantin-Latour. Through June 18.

Lille and suburbs. Further reasons to step off the train. Palais de Beaux-Arts. Carte Blanche to Three-Star Chef Alain Passard. April 8 to July 16. LaM (Villeneuve): Michel Nedjar. Through June 4. The Magical Art of André Breton. June 24 to October 1.

Marseille. When a city reputed to be one of France’s grittiest puts its trash on display. MuCEM. Vies d’ordures: The Economy of Trash. Through August 14.

Metz. The Pompidou Center continues to spread its wings. Centre Pompidou – Metz. Infinite Gardens: Giverny to the Amazon. Through August 28. Fernand Leger. May 20 to November 23.

Nice. Difficult to pull oneself away from the promenade and the old town, but here goes: Musée National Marc Chagall. Chagall’s Sculpture in the 1950s. May 27 to August 28.

Paris. Choices, choices, choices.
Grand Palais. Rodin, The Centennial Exhibition. Reserve in advance because the Rodin show, on the 100th anniversary of the sculptor’s death, is one of this summer’s blockbusters. Jardins (Gardens). Through July 24.
Musée Marmottan. Camille Pissarro: The First Impressionist. Put this on your list, Paris revisiters. Through July 2.
Centre Pompidou. Cy Twombly. Through April 24. Walker Evans. April 26 to August 14. David Hockney. June 21 to October 23.
Palais Galliera. Dalida: A Pop Diva’s Wardrobe. April 27 to August 13.
Musée Guimet. Kimonos. Through May 22. Japanese Countryside from Hokusai to Hasui and Asian Gold – Mnaag Masterpieces. June 22 to September 4.
Musée Picasso. Olga Picasso. Through September 3.
Musée d’Orsay. Mystic Landscapes – Monet to Kandinsky. Through June 25; Cézanne’s Portraits: June 13 to September 24.
Musée du Louvre. Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting. Through May 22.
Musée du Luxembourg. Pissarro à Eragny. Through July 9.
Musée Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Karel Appel. Through August 20. Derain, Balthus, Giacometti. June 2 to October 29.
Musée Jacquemart André. From Zurbaran to Rothko, The Alicia Koplowitz Collection. Through July 10.
Musée de Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac. Picasso Primitif. Through July 23. Sacred Maori Stone. May 23 to October 1.
Fondation Louis Vuitton. Art/Afrique, le nouvel atelier. April 26 to August 28.

Pau. Musée National du Château de Pau. Portraits of Children from the Gramont Collection. Through May 21. Treasures of the 16th Century Navarre Court. April 7 to July 9.

Pont-Aven. Art call in Brittany. Musée de Pont-Aven. Modernity in Brittany/1: From Claude Monet to Lucien Simon (1870 – 1920). Through June 11. Modernity in Brittany/2: From Jean-Julien Lemordant to Mathurin Méheut (1920-1940). July 1- January 7.

Rouen. Trying to avoid OD-ing on Impressionism, Normandy gets hooked on Picasso. Musée des Beaux Arts. Picasso at Chateau Boisgeloup. Musée de la céramique. Picasso at Vallauris. Musée Le Secq des Tournelles. Picasso and Julio Gonzales: Works in Iron. All April 1 to September 11.

Versailles. Château de Versailles. Peter the Great, A Tsar at Versailles in 1717. Tzar Putin himself inaugurated this show alongside French President Macron. May 30 to September 24.

Vichy. At various locations in this old spa town, Festival Portrait(s), a celebration of portraits of all kinds, including those based on fiction and conceptual schemes. June 16 to September.

The post Art and Exhibitions in France, the 2017 Summer Selection appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Janet Hulstrand

1880: On the Rue St. Georges in Paris’s 9th arrondissement, a painter of growing renown in both avant-garde and fashionable circles is having lunch at the crémerie where he often takes his meals. At nearly 40 years of age he is finally beginning to make his mark in the art world: his painting of Madame Charpentier and her children made a splash a year earlier at the Salon of 1879, which has provided needed income; and his other work, experimenting with new techniques of painting en pleine aire, is going well too.

He sees a pretty young woman enter the place with her mother. He sees in her instantly his ideal type: not too thin, rosy-cheeked, and with skin that “takes the light.” He introduces himself—his name is Auguste Renoir—and asks her if she will model for him….

The young woman, Aline Charigot, 21 years old, was from the village of Essoyes in the deep south of the Champagne region, near its border with Burgundy. She had begun her life in this village as an abandoned child: her father had walked out of their home one night before she was two years old and never returned to the family, leaving her mother without any means of support. Unable to pay the rent, or to provide for her child, the mother, like so many other poor women in rural France at the time, left for Paris to earn her living as a seamstress, leaving Aline with relatives, who would raise her. At age 15 Aline joined her mother in Paris and began to learn her trade. And that is when she met the man, the artist, who would change her life.

Aline accepted the invitation to model for Renoir and shortly after, they became lovers. In 1885 their first child, Pierre, was born. As the years went by, Aline made two significant requests of Renoir. One was to make their union legal by marriage. The other was to buy a home in Essoyes, the village where she had grown up.

He had no objection to the first request: by this time in his life he was ready to settle down. And so the marriage was performed in the district hall of Paris’s 9th arrondissement on April 14, 1890.

However, he was much less enthusiastic about the idea of spending much time so far away from Paris, the center of the art world, as well as the place where he had spent most of his life. Essoyes, today just 2½ hours away from Paris, was at the time a long and tedious journey, first by rail, then by horse-drawn carriage, that would have taken most of a day.

But eventually Aline’s entreaties won him over, and her dream of living a bourgeois life in her hometown came true. They initially rented a small house at the edge of the village during the summer of 1888, for a stay that lingered into the fall and even through the end-of-year holidays. In time Renoir became very fond of Essoyes, of the butter, the wine, the bread made there, declaring it superior to that in Paris. He said he loved being among the winegrowers “because they are generous.” He painted portraits of his family, of villagers, of the surrounding landscapes. The family was still spending much of the year in Paris, but from the late 1880s they began to regularly spend summers in Essoyes, the boy playing, the painter painting, the wife cooking. (She became famous among his artist friends for her culinary skills, in particular for her bouillaibaisse.)

Gabrielle Renard

By now, in his early 50s, Renoir’s work was selling well: he had achieved middle-class respectability, a position he balked at, but his wife took comfort in. By the time their second child, Jean, was born in 1894, they were able to hire a nanny, and Aline, now Madame Renoir, looked to her home village, and her family, for an appropriate person to fill this role. She found her in Gabrielle Renard, a young cousin living in Essoyes.

Like Aline, Gabrielle had not had an easy start in life: her mother was a widower who became pregnant out of wedlock, which subjected her to the disdain and disapproval of many villagers and even caused her own family to take her two older children away from her. So for Gabrielle too, the connection with Auguste Renoir would become a means of escape: she traveled and lived with the family in Paris, and later in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town along the Riviera where the family would winter. Gabrielle became one of Renoir’s favorite models, the subject of literally hundreds of his paintings and drawings, including some of his most famous portraits—and a lifelong, dearly beloved maternal figure for Jean Renoir.

In 1896, the Renoirs bought the first home they had ever owned, on the edge of Essoyes. A two-story home with an open courtyard facing the street, and a spacious garden at the back of the house, this house became the center of the domestic life Aline had craved and Renoir scarcely knew he wanted but did appreciate when he had it.

For Jean Renoir, the second son, a filmmaker, the time spent in Essoyes became a kind of idyllic memory that he treasured all his life. “Essoyes, where my mother was born, has remained more or less unspoiled,” he wrote years later. “There is no other place like it in the whole wide world. There I spent the best years of my childhood…Every summer we would go back. My mother would invite friends and surround Renoir with this life that he loved so much…”

Ambroise Vollard, who became both the dealer and a friend for Renoir, as well as the dealer for many of the other artists in his circle, also recognized the importance of the ways in which Aline provided support to the artist in her own simple way. “I wonder if it is generally known that it is largely due to his wife that Renoir painted all his wonderful still lifes of flowers,” he wrote. “She knew what pleasure it gave him to paint flowers, but she realized that the trouble of going to get them was too much for him. So she always had them about the house…”

Jean also saw how important his mother was in his father’s life, and how well she understood him: “With her intuitive, rustic understanding, she saw that Renoir was made for painting the way vines are made to produce wine…” he wrote.

At first Renoir painted in a ground floor studio in the house. Nine years after they purchased the house, he built a studio at the far end of the garden, further evidence of their growing roots there. He built the studio, he said, so that he could paint “without disturbing the children at their play.” It was in this studio that he also worked on his first sculptures. Of course many of the works he did in Essoyes began en pleine aire. (Today several of those spots are marked with easels displaying reproductions of the works he painted there.)

Though by now he loved being in Essoyes, the damp climate in Champagne, with its cold winters, was not good for his increasingly severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. By 1907 his doctor had ordered a move to the South of France, and the Renoirs found a place in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where the the family began spending their winters in 1908. It was in Cagnes that Gabrielle met her future husband, Conrad Slade, an American painter. During the Second World War the Slades moved to the U.S., and in 1955, after her husband died, Gabrielle moved to California to be near Jean Renoir, who had also moved there during the war. They maintained a close relationship for the rest of Gabrielle’s life. “She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes,” said the filmmaker whose work shows great insight into both.

While they continued to spend time in Essoyes when they could, both of the Renoirs died on the Riviera: Aline in Nice in 1915, and her husband in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1919. And though they were originally buried in the south of France, their remains were later returned to Essoyes for burial, in accordance with their wishes. Now they and all three of their sons, and some of the sons’ children and wives, are buried in the village cemetery, just a short walk away from the painter’s studio.

All three of the Renoir sons became artists: Pierre, a well-known actor of screen and stage; Jean, the director of La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu, among many other films; and Claude, the youngest, a ceramist.

The house in Essoyes remained in the Renoir family and was used by Sophie Renoir, a granddaughter of Pierre Renoir, and her family until 2012. She then sold it to the municipality of Essoyes, which purchased the property in order to turn it into the centerpiece of Du côté des Renoir, Essoyes’ homage to the family. Renoir’s studio opened to the public in 2011: there is also a small but informative interpretive center next to the village hall.

Images of Aline and her young cousin, Gabrielle are prominently displayed in the streets of Essoyes. Several murals in the village reproduce Renoir paintings in which they appear: one, a portrait of Gabrielle and Jean Renoir as an infant, is on the site of Gabrielle’s birthplace.

The Year of Renoir

In honor of the public opening of Renoir family home on June 3, Aube, the department or sub-region in which Essoyes is located, has designated 2017 as the Year of Renoir. One of the major events is an exhibition entitled Un autre Renoir (Another Renoir) presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Troyes from June 17 to September 17 featuring portraits of the Renoir family and of Gabrielle, along with landscapes of the region.

Several Renoir works, on loan from museums in Bordeaux, Rouen, and Cagnes-sur-Mer, will be displayed in the Renoir home during the summer months. A weekend celebration called “Essoyes à la Belle Epoque” will take place on July 22 and 23.

Throughout the summer Bernard Pharisien, a local historian, will lead free walking tours of the village Sat., Sun., Mon. and Tues. mornings, in French only. Tours in English can be arranged for groups of 12 or more by writing to groupes.renoir@gmail.com

Champagne

The names Essoyes and Aube might be off the radar to most travelers, but the wines of champagne certainly aren’t. Indeed, Essoyes is one of the villages within the Côte des Bar growing area for champagne grapes. Visitors have the possibility to visit small grower-producers in Essoyes, as well as producers, from large champagne houses to small producers, in the surrounding area.

Getting to Essoyes

Essoyes is a 2 ½ hour drive from Paris. Troyes is an hour and a half train ride from Gare de l’Est in Paris: from there Essoyes is just under an hour’s drive southeast, through vineyards, fields of rapeseed and wheat, and beautiful rural villages. Trains run frequently from Paris’s Gare de l’Est to Troyes: some trains continue on to Vendeuvre sur Barse (one stop beyond Troyes) and Bar sur Aube. In Troyes you can rent a car from Hertz or Enterprise, both located near the train station (check opening times of rental agencies before purchasing train ticket). It’s also possible to take a taxi from Vendeuvre to Essoyes, about a 30-minute drive.

For further information

Essoyes Tourist Office: www.ot-essoyes.fr
Aube Tourist Office: www.aube-champagne.com/en/
Year of Renoir 2017: www.aube-champagne.com/fr/annee-renoir-2017/
Troyes Tourist Office: www.tourisme-troyes.com
Aube Champagne Growers: www.cap-c.fr

Another major art event in the department of Aube this year is the opening of the Camille Claudel Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine.

A Renoir Route that follows in the painter’s footsteps and naturally include Essoyes has been outlined as one of a dozen Impressionism Routes by the French association Eau et Lumière.

© 2017, Janet Hulstrand

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor and teacher of writing and literature who divides her time between France and the United States. She writes the blog Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road. Other articles that Janet Hulstrand has written for France Revisited can be found here.

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The post The Painter’s Wife: Aline Charigot Renoir and the Renoir Home in Essoyes appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

So subtle is the interplay of surveillance and performance that it took this reviewer several minutes to grasp the true significance of the abundance of security personnel. As I visited the allocated space within the glass and steel building designed, I was increasingly enthralled by the way in which the foundation’s curators, financiers and merchants have create, inadvertently perhaps, a choreography of security personnel that offers deep insights into the work of the artists and the working of the foundation itself.

We spectators, arriving on Sunday afternoon with invitations and those invited to pay at the gate, were like shadows milling about, an unobtrusive audience leaving free range to the gestures, expressions and movement of the security personnel, themselves circumscribed by the work they “guarded.”

Dennis Oppenheim’s Table Piece, 1975, acquired by the foundation in 1996, occupies the larger of two rooms downstairs, where the presence of the vigils turns an examination of public discourse into a curatorial tour de force, however unintentional that may be. Oppenheim’s table organizes the space like the basement ping-pong table of American suburbia. Two doll-like figures, resembling Paul Simon circa 1969, sit on chairs at opposite ends of the long narrow table. One is gold and is dressed in a black suit, the other silver with a white suit. They call to each other “black, white, light, dark.” Evocative enough on its own, the installation is given greater presence thanks to the foundation’s decision to place a guard at each end, the one stout and vague in his gaze, the other a slight brune with glasses. But the overall effect would be narrow were it not for the presence of yet another guard in a corner of the room. Long jet black hair, an apprehensive stillness over a poised stance, she approaches after a moment the corpulent fellow and mouths something unheard as the Paul Simons quicken their dialogue of “black, white, light, dark.” (Performers will likely change through the length of the show.)

The French word for security guard is vigile. Linguistic “false friend” though it may be, I cannot help but think of the performers here as “vigils.” Their presence made for a tremendous performance piece in the eyes of this reviewer. Removed from the spectator yet one with him they stand near walls at the juncture of surveillance, witness, patience, participation.

Each work revealed itself in its dialogue with the vigils, and those interactions are so seamlessly spread throughout the space that one feels no dead zones of the they type that one might feel in, say, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Indeed, it’s unlikely that a public museum could achieve the intensity of what is best called Dance of the Vigils.

A most extraordinary dialogue between the “vigil” and the artwork is found the smaller room in the basement. The room is dominated by Ron Mueck’s In Bed, 2005, created for the Ron Mueck exhibition of 2005. A stunning piece on its own, a giant figure lies as though in bed, knees raised, and watches visitors enter the room. Ill? Depressed? Psychotic? Dreamy? Expecant? Renounced?, the viewer wonders before noticing the guard standing awkwardly nearby, anxious witness to both the expression on the face of the figure and the wondering gaze of the viewer. But no? He is not witness; he is protagonist, a man caught between two worlds—the reality of the viewer and the unreality of the sculpture. He now skirts the room, entrapped, a man who cannot escape his larger-than-life wife or mother but aware that he must perform his “duty.” This is my favorite of the vigil scenes.

There are many others worthy of attention. A vigil at the bottom of the stairs, standing against a canary-yellow wall, is doomed, it seems, to watch visitors descend the final 6 steps after the landing. What, one wonders, is he watching, is he waiting for, is he expecting? He appears to be counting our rise and descent: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I went up and down several times trying to grasp the nature of his performance. The rest rooms, I discover, are to his left down the hallway, one wall of which is bordered by transparent installations echoing the glass and steel of the building. The vigil against the canary yellow wall, counting our steps, therefore stands as ironic commentary on the transparency of numbers: years, dates, visitors, costs, etc. Fascinating.

The foundation’s anniversary exhibition opened against a backdrop of rain clouds, sun showers, bright blue sky and May greens. It is dense with quiet staging of the apprehensive gaze of the personnel and the works on display. These “vigils,” each with a subtle mix of attentiveness, sexuality and distraction are dressed in black suits, black shoes, black ties and white shirts for the men, narrow black slacks and prudent blouses for the women. Some wear an ear piece, but for what?, the viewer wonders. In anticipation of Godot? of a bejeweled donor? of the entrance of an artist with “vision” or “plastic wit”?

One male performer touches his earpiece as though to wonder if an organization so well-funded and clear-goaled a man might stand alone, apart, disconnected, perhaps abandoned. It’s a wonderful echo of Il Cavaliere di Dürer, 2011, by Allessandro Mendini, the work beside which he stands.

No sooner does that brief action take place than our—my— attention is drawn to that of two vigils standing together the playscape towers of Bodys Isek Kingelez’s Projet pour le Kinshasa du troisième millénaire, 1997. Approaching, I hear that they are discussing New York. Brilliant.

Inside, Raymond Hains’ Brise-lames de Saint Malo, plage du Sillon, 1994, and Jean-Michel Alberola’s Eclairage en groupe, 2014, serve as timid reminders that we are in France, otherwise the dearth of works by French-born artists draws attention to the lonely thumb in the garden by sculptor César, that seems to say that the new realism of the past 30 years is how little attention living French artists get (deserve?) on the international market. The panels describing the individual works are in French while the “vigils” are unnamed, undated. A brave curatorial approach, that.

I visit the garden, as is called the greenery that surrounds the glass box of the building. Through the transparent wall a vigil checks her phone. She is standing behind the brightly colorful partition “OMG!” by Allessandro Mendini and Peter Halley, 2014. How wonderful this illusion of hiding behind the bright wall while seen through the transparent wall, as though the latter were coverage by the mere fact of being an enclosure. Archictect Jean Nouvel should be pleased by this homage to his work.

At the food shack by the garden café, its chairs empty but for the rain, a vigil, the only “client,” stirs his coffee, his red umbrella by his side. “Les photos,” he says, “sont interdites.” “Il est interdit,” he says, “de fumer dans le jardin.” His tone is light, apologetic yet clear, an magnificent articulation of the use of the word “interdire” (to forbid) in contemporary art foundations, where freedom of commerce encounters freedom of art under the complex gaze, at once placid and anxious, biding and operational, in need of coffee or a smoke or a message from the world beyond, of a dozen security figures. A celebration of artistic freedom circumscribed only by the forbidden and the unsaid.

I return inside, drawn still to this extraordinary performance of the security personnel. At times the “vigils” don’t seem to watch as much as they do to submit to the space, the sound, the color, the movement. I look up to the bookshop balcony. There, arms crossed, stands a vigil with shave head—an excellent choice of figures since we think of him as the most guard-like. He stands as straight-faced commentary on the hinge of the conversation between commerce and art; the vigil against the canary yellow wall stands between foundation and basement; the vigil furtively checking her phone stands between the opaque and the transparent; the vigil by In Bed acts out the works emotions in a confrontation between display and (in)security; a vigil stretches discreetly from the back of the screening space, loosening wrists, stretching shoulders.

Is this planned or unintentional or inevitable? No matter. I cannot imagine a better way to celebrate the foundation than with this Dance of the Vigils.

1984-2014: 30 Years at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, May 10-Sept. 21, 2014. 261 boulevard Raspail, 14th arrondissment. Metro Raspail or Denfert-Rochereau or RER Denfert-Rochereau. Open daily except Monday 11am-8pm and until 10pm on Tuesday. 10€; 7:€ for students and those under 25; free for children under 13 or on Wednesday for those under 18. For further information see www.fondationcartier.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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Perhaps too much, for speaking of Dali in those terms has a tendency to mask the fact that he was the last giant of the history of 20th-century art, an equal to Picasso, and that this surrealist who swore by the Renaissance and often dug into the repertory of old master put all of his theatricality, heresy and provocation into his work as a painter.

More than 30 years after the extraordinary Salvador Dali retrospective of 1979-1980 at the Pompidou Center in Paris, when Dali (1904-1989) was alive but in ill health, Dali is back in an impressive retrospective running through March 25, 2013. The show examines his life, warts and all, and once again shines light on the power and the originality of his art, an art of technical perfection that culminated between 1925 and 1950, with a major boost coming in 1929 when he met Gala.

The exhibition opens with Dali in an Egg, a large photograph by Philippe Halsman that superbly translates the Catalan artist’s fascination with this symbol of intrauterine life and rebirth (renaissance). The egg is omnipresent in Dali’s work and it stands atop his home at Port Lligat and is repeated on the roof of his Theater-Museum in Figueres.

Among the 120 paintings in the retrospective are a number of works that are rarely shown in public along with many famous painting, including masterpieces from the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and The Persistence of Memory (1931), also known as Soft Watches, the small painting on loan from New York’s Museum of Modern Art that is so emblematic of Dali’s universe.

His method of “critical paranoia” is highlighted in the show, presented in such a way as to enable several levels of reading an image, as in his famous interpretation of Jean-François Millet’s painting The Angelus, which Dali returned to obsessively.

A wealth of drawings, objects, films and audio also contribute to a successful staging of the retrospective which includes kiosks and various theatrics (Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as an Apartment, with the possibility for visitors to actually sit on her couch-lips). Dali’s interest in performances and black-humor happenings is revealed, as when he plays a harpsichord in which a cat meows each time a key is pressed.

The retrospective examines at length the artist’s last twenty years of work, which are often disparaged. During that time Dali experimented with new approaches, for example pop art and action painting, which demonstrate his openness to the contemporary world even if the result isn’t convincing. He then returned to the old masters before finding inspiration in the mathematical theory of catastrophes. The genius had disappeared long before the end of the story.

Since Dali’s death in 1989, his abundant production has led to copies by forgers and reproductions on millions of posters and has served as a library of images and ideas for numerous artists: from Jeff Koons to Matthew Barney by way of Piotr Uklanski. Altogether these uses have troubled and even tarnished Dali’s image, leading me to give one piece of advice: Don’t miss this retrospective.

Dali Retrospective at the Pompidou Center, November 21, 2012 to March 25, 2013. The Pompidou Center is open daily except Tuesday 11am to 9pm. www.centrepompidou.fr. Entrance to the museum’s collections and exhibitions: 13€.

Catherine Rigollet is the founding editor of L’Agora des Arts, www.lagoradesarts.fr, a website dedicated to the arts. As a journalist she worked for Le Point, L’Express, Le Figaro Eco and the Les Echos group before taking over the culture and exhibitions section of Air France Magazine. She is the author of a dozen books about art, history, heritage and social issues including Les Conquérantes (Nil Editions, 1996) and Les Francs Maçons (JC Lattès 1989).

This article first appeared in French © Catherine Rigollet in L’Agora des Arts (see original article here) and has been translated and adapted, with permission, for France Revisited by Gary Lee Kraut.

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This year’s crop of celebrations goes from the 1800th anniversary of the edict granting Roman citizenships to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire (including Gaul) to the 50th anniversary of the referendum for the election of the French president through universal suffrage, by way of the 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc and the 250th anniversary of the opening in Lyon of the world’s first veterinary school, along with more than 60 other notable anniversaries.

Notable? Certainly not to top-10 minded travelers and even to most French.

Nevertheless, taken together these historical markers give fascinating insights into the memory of France and, at least in an academic sense, to its national identity. Well-educated French love to hear and read about their history. Historians are literary stars here; academiciens, as members of the prestigious Académie Française are called, pen 500-page tomes that get read at the beach; museums jump at the chance to dust off art and craftwork and documents in their tremendous reserves to celebrate an anniversary.

So even without going into details about this year’s commemorations, it’s worth considering what the very serious “Mission for National Commemorations” deems memorable. And since such recognition typically leads to funding from local, regional and national government toward the mounting of cultural events and exhibits, you may well encounter exhibitions or concerts or special events honoring these centennials and semicentennials as you travel and read about France this year.

Here are some of the events that have been selected for national commemoration in 2012.

Year: Event

212: Edict granting Roman citizenships to all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, including Gaul.

512: Death at age 89 of Saint Geneviève, for Catholics the patron saint of Paris. Her sarcophagus (emptied of her remains during the French Revolution) is found in a chapel at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont Church in Paris, behind the Pantheon.

1412: Birth of Joan of Arc / Jeanne d’Arc in Domrémy, a village on the eastern edge of the kingdom. She was burned at the stake in Rouen (Normandy) in 1431.

1512: Beginning of the creation of the celebrated Issenheim altarpiece, painted by Matthais Grünewald. The altarpiece is the main draw to Colmar’s Unterlinden Museum. The commemoration of this anniversary is less revealing of national character (Grünewald was, after all, German) than the polemic surrounding its restoration and plans to move it to a new extension of the museum in 2013.

1612: Birth of architect Louis Le Vau, one of the prime forces of French classicism, the architectural style of Louis XIV. Among his works: the Hotel Lambert (mansion on Ile Saint Louis in Paris), the chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, a portion of Versailles, and the building that is now the French Institute. He died in 1670.

1612: Inauguration of the Place des Vosges (originally called the Place Royale) in Paris. It was inaugurated by a parade celebrating the engagement of Louis XIII and Anne, Infanta of Spain. Construction of the square was launched by Louis XIII’s father Henri IV.

1662: Death of Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician, born in 1623.

1712: Marshall Villars led French forces to victory against the Dutch at the Battle of Denain during the exhausting European coalition war—this one pitting France and Spain against Austria, England and Holland—known as the War of Spanish Succession, a war that help bring about an inglorious end to the reign of Louis XIV.

1712: Birth in Geneva of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and writer, author of Emile, The Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, and Confessions. The Rhone-Alpes region (Lyon, Annecy, Chambery) is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of this giant of the Enlightenment (died in 1778) and the 250th anniversary of the publication of Emile and of The Social Contract with various exhibitions and events.

1762: Opening in Lyon of the world’s first veterinary school.

1812: Birth of the artist Theodore Rousseau, cofounder of the Barbizon School that preceded the Impressionist period. He died in 1867.

1862: Publication of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

1862: Birth of the composer Claude Debussy (died 1918) and of the playwright Georges Feydeau (died 1927).

1862: Measurement (slightly modified since) of the speed of light by Léon Foucault (1819-1868), who is also famous for his pendulum providing visual evidence of the earth’s rotation, a version of which can still be seen at the Pantheon in Paris.

1862: Creation of the National Museum of Antiquities in the Chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a former royal residence just west of Paris.

1912: Birth of Abbé Pierre (né Henri Grouès), a Catholic priest, founder of Emmaus, an association promoting solidarity with and assistance for the poor. He died in 2007. The Emmaus International Movement now consists of 317 working in 36 countries, including 185 in France, 15 in the United Kingdom, and two in the United States.

1912: Birth of the novelist Pierre Boulle (died 1994). Though his name is largely unknown, movie adaptations of two of novels were major hits: The Bridge Over the River Kwai and The Planet of the Apes.

1912: Treaty of Fez makes Morocco a French protectorate. The treaty was eliminated in 1956 when France recognized the independence of Morocco.

1912: Birth of the actor and director Jean Vilar, creator of the Avignon Theater Festival (1947). He died in 1971.

1912: Birth of the photographer Robert Doisneau, whose 1959 picture of a beach scene at Les Sables d’Olonne graces the cover of this year’s directory of national commemorations (shown above). He died in 1994.

1962: Release of Francois Truffaut’s film Jules et Jim starring Henri Serre, Oscar Werner and Jeanne Moureau.

1962: End of the War in Algeria and recognition of Algerian independence.

1962: Referendum on the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage, meaning direct election by the people, as opposed to the system then in force of having the president elected by an electoral college comprised of about 80,000 elected officials. The referendum was passed with oui votes from 61% of voters.

A full list in French of National Commemorations for 2012 in France can be found here.

(c) 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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While Paris’s seasonal crop of exhibitions, theater and music clamors for attention, the numerous national and religious cultural centers of Paris yield their fruit year-round to lesser fanfare.

These centers welcome members and outside visitors to diverse programming of a more intimate or confidential kind, bringing to Paris glimpses great and small of nations and of religions.

Some of the centers and institutes listed below are worth a visit even without attending a particular event since they occupy notable or historical buildings or attractive settings in their own right: for example, the Swedish Cultural Center has a peaceable tearoom in his historic building and courtyard in the Marais, while the Collège des Bernadins (a Catholic cultural center) occupies a historical building of the 13th century across the river from Notre-Dame.

Here to start are six institutions that reveal the diversity of these cultural centers

1. Irish Cultural Center
5 rue des Irlandais, 5th arrondissement
The Irish Cultural Center, located two blocks south of the Pantheon, grew out of the Collège des Irlandais, a Catholic seminary for Irish students. A community of Irish students and clergymen officially gathered on the Left Bank in 1578 as they sought refuge for training and education of Catholicism, then restricted back home. Irish colleges (seminaries) were then set up in various Catholic or Catholic-friendly countries of Europe; about 30 existed in continental Europe by the end of the 18th century, with the community in Paris being the largest. The students moved into the location of what is now Irish Cultural Center in 1775. Later extensions include a chapel dedicated to Saint Patrick, which still holds Sunday mass open to the public, and a library of old books and manuscripts, many dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, visited only by special permission. A modern library on the ground floor is open to the public.

La Fondation Irlandaise (The Irish Foundation), comprised of French and Irish members, has managed the Collège des Irlandais since a decree by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1805. The street the center is on was renamed for the Irish two years later, though the complex has also served other functions over the years. In 1945 it briefly served as a refuge for displace persons claiming or requesting American nationality. From 1945 to 1997 it was used as a Polish seminary. Returned to the Irish, now financed by the Irish government, and no longer a religious center despite the presence of the chapel, the Irish Cultural Center reopened as such in 2002. The center promotes various aspects of culture emanating from the island, including music, poetry, literature and film. The center also has housing for 45 students, artists and writers.

2. British Council 
9-11 rue de Constantine, 7th arrondissement
The British have an extensive educational and cultural network throughout the world in the form of the British Council, “an executive non-departmental public body, a public corporation (in accounting terms) and a charity” promoting all things British. The British Council in Paris is of most interest to English-speakers residing or visiting the city for its occasional speaking events involving prestigious figures in the fields of the film, literature and the performing arts. The British Council is also heavily involved in efforts to promote the English language through courses and to promote British science, culture and arts through cooperative programs.

3. Swedish Institute
11 rue Payenne, 3rd arrondissement.
This is Sweden’s only foreign official cultural center in any country. From the historical mansion that it has occupied in the Marais since 1971 (making it one of the first such mansions to be restored in the district), the Swedish Institute organizes exhibitions, concerts, encounters with writers, projects of films, theater and debates on questions of culture, science and society. Swedish classes are also available.

Even without an exhibition the Swedish Institute makes for an appealing stop in the Marais for its café/lunch room, open noon to 6 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Swedish bread, pastries, soup and sandwiches.

4. Collège des Bernardins, a Catholic cultural center. 
20 rue de Poissy, 5th arrondissement
Before considering its contemporary use, it’s worth noting that the Collège des Bernadins, owned and operated by the Catholic Diocese of Paris, is of exceptional architectural value for its 230-foot-long (70-meter-long) 13th-century “nave” that originally served as living space and educational center for Cistercian monks (also known as Bernardins after Saint Bernard who helped develop the order).

In the absence of special events in the nave, entrance is free and open to the public. It’s located on the Left Bank just one street back from the river across from Notre-Dame. Its gardens, in fact, once spread to the riverbank.

Construction of the Collège des Bernardins was part of the development of centers of learning (which at the time meant a theological education) on the Left Bank are that is now the 5th arrondissement. The origins of the Sorbonne, founded by Robert de Sorbon, also date from this period of the 13th century. The area would eventually become known as the Latin Quarter since the education of these and other institutions was in Latin.

The Collège des Bernadins declined in the second half of the 18th century and, during the revolution, lost its religious function when seized from the Church as national property. It was first transformed into a prison and then used as a fire station for 150 years beginning in 1845.

Purchased by the Diocese of Paris in 2001, a vast project of restoration and enhancement was then undertaken (costing 52 million euros, including 14 million in public funding) to create a center “dedicated to hopes and questions of our society and their encounter with Christian wisdom.” The center reopened in 2008. According to the center’s administrators, no public funding is used for its operating expenses.

The mixed-use center holds exhibits, performances and musical events, provides classrooms for theological and biblical education through the Cathedral School, and organizes conferences and lectures that bring together a political, artistic and academic intelligentsia to discuss numerous themes as vast and varied as biomedical ethics, economics, and relations between Judaism and Christianity.  Events take place in the nave or in the comfortable 240-seat auditorium that has been added beneath the eves.

5. Polish Institute
31 rue Jean Goujon, 8th arrondissement.
As with many of the national institutes and centers on this list, the Polish institute is a window to the nation’s contemporary artistic and intellectual culture and has the mission of promoting the national culture and influence while favoring international cultural exchanges with the host country. The Polish Institute excels in this form of cultural diplomacy in Paris through its programming that presents intellectual and artistic and historical views and voices from Poland.

6. Arab Institute
1 rue des Fossées-Saint-Bernard, 5th arrondissement.
The Arab Institute, Institut du Monde Arabe, opened in 1987 on the left bank of the Seine with a mission of presenting to the public Islamic-Arab culture from its origins to today. It therefore presents and representing a region (ignoring Israel), a religion and the diverse cultures of Arab countries.

Financed by France with contributions by Arab states, the institute has three main goals: to make the French aware of the Arab world, to favor cultural exchanges and to reinforce France-Arab cooperation.

The Lebanese restaurant at the top of the building has a delicious view of Notre-Dame, the Seine and the rooftops of Paris. The building was designed by group of architects led by French architect Jean Nouvel.

Map showing location of the six institutions described above

An extended and non-exhaustive list of other cultural centers and institutes in Paris

The names of organizations representing non-English-language countries have been translated into English for the purposes of this article.

7. Algerian Cultural Center, rue de la Croix-Nivert, 15th arr.
8. Bulgarian Cultural Institute, rue de la Boétie, 8th arr.
9. Canadian Cultural Center, 5 rue de Constantine, 7th arr.
10. Cervantes Institute of Paris (Spanish cultural center) , 7 rue Quentin Bauchart, 8th arr.
11. Cultural Center of China in Paris, boulevard de la Tour Maubourg, 7th arr.
12. Danish House, 142 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arr.
13. Dutch Institute, 121 rue de Lille, 7th arr.
14. Egyptian Cultural Center, 11 boulevard Saint-Michel, 5th arr.
15. Finnish Institute, 60 rue des Ecoles, 5th arr.
16. Goethe Institute (German Cultural Center), 17 avenue d’Iéna, 16th arr.
17. Greek Cultural Center, 23 rue Galilée, 16th arr.
18. Hungarian Institute of Paris, 92 rue Bonaparte, 6th arr.
19. Italian Cultural Institute, 73 rue de Grenelle, 7th arr.
20. Japanese Cultural Center, 101 bis quai Branly, 15th arr.
21. Korean Cultural Center, 2 avenue d’Iéna, 16th arr.
22. Kurdish Institute of Paris, 106 rue La Fayette, 10th arr.
23. Latin American House, 217 boulevard Saint-Germain, 7th arr.
24. Mexican Cultural Center, 119 rue Vieille du Temple, 3rd arr.
25. Romanian Cultural Institute, 1 rue de l’Exposition, 7th arr.
26. Russian Center for Science and Culture, 61 rue Boissière, 16th arr.
27. Swiss Cultural Center, 32-38 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 3rd arr.
28. Cultural Center of Taiwan in Paris, 78 rue de l’Université, 7th arr.
29. Cultural Center of Vietnam in Paris, 19-19bis rue Albert, 13th arr.

There used to be an American Center in Paris, but it went broke in 1996.

The association Forum des Instituts Culturels Etrangers à Paris (FICEP) bring together 46 foreign and regional cultural institutes in the capital. For more information on FICEP, which celebrates Foreign Culures Week in Paris from Sept. 23 to Oct. 2 this year, see www.ficep.info.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

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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

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“There’s nothing to see here, but people still want to come,” he says.

He is Dominique-Charles Janssens, proprietor of the Auberge Ravoux, which now functions not as an inn but as a placeholder for the memory of Vincent Van Gogh. Mr. Janssens is also director of the Institut Van Gogh whose goal for for the past two decades has been to purchase a painting by Van Gogh to hang in this tiny attic room since the artist once wrote that he dreamt of having an exhibition in a café.

“There’s nothing to see,” he says, “but everything to feel.”

Yet I don’t feel much. If his room wasn’t such a tourist attraction would I be more inclined to feel the artist’s presence, his poverty, his mix of hope and despair in the final, prolific 70 days of his life?

I was here about 20 years ago, when there was a bit less to see and a bit more to feel but still didn’t feel much. Has revisiting dampened my interested in the subject? No, I was rereading Van Gogh’s letters to his younger brother Theo the other day and found them just as fascinating as when I first read them in my 20s.

Perhaps Mr. Janssens, a former marketing director with the Danone group, who purchased the inn 25 years ago, has given this presentation a few too many times and I’m overly aware that the “nothing to see but everything to feel” line is in the brochures.

There is nothing to see in Van Gogh’s room other than a small skylight, an old bistro chair, and a secure wall awaiting the painting. A 13-minute video about the artist is shown two rooms away.

I’m not disappointed, though, just ready to move on. I actually like the feel downstairs of the old bistro/café circa 1890 where we had coffee and a crossant. There was something to see there, some atmosphere to feel, a cup of coffee where Vincent had dinner.

Anyway, it isn’t for Van Gogh alone that I’ve come to Auvers-sur-Oise this time. It’s for Zadkine.

This summer Auvers-sur-Oise celebrates the 50th anniversary of the inauguration in town of a bronze statue of Vincent Van Gogh by the sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1890-1867).

Zadkine’s name may have been mislaid among the hit-parade of artists and sculptors who made their mark in Paris in the 20th century, yet his work has maintained its strength and depth and originality. The Zadkine Museum near the Luxembourg Garden, where the Russian emigree lived and worked from 1928 until his death, is a personal favorite of mine among the small museums of Paris.

Why Auvers
Daubigny, Corot, Cézanne, Pissarro, Vlaminck and others contributed to placing Auvers and surroundings on the map for the Impressionists and their kin both pre- and post. Daubigny is the least bankable of the names above, but it’s largely thanks to him that Auvers, where he lived from 1861 until his death in 1878, became known as an Impressionist hang-out. But it was Van Gogh, the least successful of these during his lifetime, who, in creating 70 paintings in 70 days and in dying here two days after shooting himself in the stomach, gave Auvers its lettres de noblesse as an art town.

We all now recognize the work he did during this final, prolific period of his life: his portraits (e.g. Doctor Gachet, Madame Gachet, self-portrait) and landscapes (e.g. the wheat field with crows) and views of Auvers’ major buildings (e.g. the church, town hall, the chateau). Nineteen plaques have been placed around Auvers with weathered reproductions showing where he mostly likely stood while painting the given view.

Across the street from the inn, Van Gogh painted the little town hall decorated for the 14th of July (Bastille Day) Ball; in the evening the square would be full of people, a brass band playing, the whole town dancing, laughing, drinking. But as he paints there is no one to be seen.

He painted the town’s church, wobbly in the evening nightfall, at the end of a lush, green day, a peasant woman walking by.

Van Gogh arrived in Auvers on May 20, 1890, and died on July 29 in that room where there’s nothing to see at the Auberge Ravoux. He was 37. His younger brother, confidant, and primary supporter Theo died of syphilis six months later. He was 33. There isn’t much to see at their plots in the cemetery, just two simple rounded tombstones, pillows on a single ivy-covered bed, but that’s enough to make you want to go home and read Vincent’s collected letters (primarily to Theo).

Beyond the wall of the cemetery is a field, where Van Gogh saw crows. He shot himself in such a field.

Why Zadkine

Local admirers of Van Gogh selected Zadkine for the commission of creating a statue to the artist in 1955. Zadkine’s Van Gogh stands in a non-descript park, a simple public green space where otherwise you’d scarcely want to stop on your way to the market. It shows a tall, thin figure, his hatch-marked face tense and focused, marching into the sun with his easel and paint utensils slung along across his chest and back. Zadkine described him as “an escaped prisoner who has left with his bars.”

Subsequent to the inauguration of his Van Gogh here in 1961, Zadkine received two other commissions for sculptures in places associated with the artist:
– a sculpture of Vincent and his brother Theo that stands in the Dutch village of Zudent, his birthplace;
– a bust of the artist that can be seen at the asylum at Saint Remy de Provence where Vincent interred himself from May 1889 to May 1890 following a troubled winter during which, after a fight with Gaugin, he cut off his earlobe and offered it to a prostitute.

From Saint Remy, Van Gogh returned to Paris then moved to Auvers, already known to his contemporaries and elders as a peaceable painter’s town. There was countryside here, and the Oise River passes by. Also, Dr. Gachet, who would watch over Van Gogh during his stay, lived here. Van Gogh’s portrait of Dr. Gachet is among the artist’s works at the Orsay Museum; it was a gift to the State by the doctor’s son. Dr. Gachet’s house is also being used to honor Zadkine this summer with a presentation of 19 lithographs.

Far more notable is the selection of sculptures, on loan through August 31 from the Zadkine Museum, that are exhibited in the Orangerie of the 17th-century Chateau d’Auvers. The selection shows the variety of Zadkine’s work from 1926 to 1963.

Another venue for Zadkine’s work this year is the Musee Daubigny, which is showing various sculptures and photographs relative to the creation and installation of his statue of Van Gogh. They give insights into the sculptor’s efforts to create a work honoring a fellow artist. It’s a small but worthwhile exhibit that includes a video showing Zadkine riding from Paris on the bed of a truck with his Van Gogh on the way to Auvers—quite amusing actually, the sculptor looking like a proud tourist as he rides along the Seine, past the Louvre.

On May 21, 1890, the day after Vincent’s arrival in Auvers, he wrote to his dear brother in what may have been a rather manic moment and lauded the beauty of Auvers’ thatch roofs and picturesque countryside.

But Auvers isn’t beautiful anymore, and probably hasn’t been for some time. It isn’t beautiful, it isn’t easy to get to, and there’s isn’t much to see at the inn, but there’s a lot to discover here… and possibly to feel. That’s up to you.

(c) 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

If you go
Zadkine in Auvers. Zadkine’s statue of Van Gogh is a permanent presence in Auvers. Zadkine’s works elsewhere in town are only on display April 2-Aug. 31, 2011.

Auberge Ravoux/Maison de Van Gogh (pronounced von gog in French), Place de la Mairie, 95439 Auvers-sur-Oise. Tel 01 30 36 60 60. Open early March to end October, Wed. to Sun., 10am-6pm. Entrance: 6€. Visit to room + 13-minute video + explanatory panels. During those months the dining room serves lunch Wed.-Sun. and dinner Sat. and Sun.
Auberge Ravoux, the original inn, has been restored as it would have been in 1890, though much of the meal space is in a new construction behind the inn. (At the time of Zadkine’s commission the inn where his admirers gathered bore the name Restaurant Van Gogh before reverting to Auberge Ravoux.)

The Chateau d’Auvers houses a permanent multimedia show that seeks to bring to life the art and leisure of the Impressionist period. There’s a café inside. Entrance: 13€.
The Zadkine exhibition is in the Orangerie, a separate entrance from the chateau. Entrance: 3€.

The Auvers-sur-Oise Tourist Office is located in the Manoir des Columbières, rue de la Sansonne. Tel. 01 30 36 10 06. Various tourist information can be found on the town’s website.

Musée Daubigny, within the building that houses the tourist office, is open afternoons Wed-Sun. as well as 10:30am-12:30pm Sat. and Sun. April-Oct. Entrance: 4€.

The Auvers-sur-Oise International Music Festival
An annual event bringing classical music to town from early June to early July (June 4-July 7, 2011).

Getting to Auvers
Access to Auvers from Paris by public  transportation can be complicated since it consists of taking the train from Paris’s Gare Saint-Lazare to the town of Pontoise then changing  trains for Auvers. Alternatively, take the train from Gare du Nord to Valmondois then change trains for Auvers. The trip takes about an hour with a decent connection. Or taxi from Pontoise (6 miles) or Valmondois (3 miles). Check the train schedule on any given day here.

On Satudays, Sundays and holidays from April through October, there is a direct 33-minute train from Paris Gare du Nord to Auvers departing Paris at 9:56am. The return train departs Auvers at 6:15pm, meaning that you’d be required to make a day of it. One could, I suppose,  but I suspect that I’d find myself waiting around for the train. Furthermore, the Auberge Ravoux recommends avoiding weekends, if possible, due to crowds since only small groups are allowed into Van Gogh’s room at any one time.

Staying in Paris
Musée Zadkine, 100 bis rue d’Assas, 6th arrondissement. Metro Notre-Dame-des-Champs or Vavin. Closed Monday and most holidays.

(c) 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

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That journalist would indeed be working if he thought went out to investigate all of them, not just with their viewing but in trying to understand and explain the surprise, significance and/or disappointment behind, say:

Monet at the Grand Palais,
France 1500 also at the Grand Palais,
Treasures of the Medicis at the Maillot Museum,
Incan Gold at the Pinacotheque,
Heinrich Kuhn at the Orangerie,
Baba Bling: Interior Signs of Wealth in Singapore at Quai Branly,
to mention those sitting on my desk and taking place in Paris,

or numerous the gallery openings.

Today, though, I’m going to an opening that includes several works by artist and art therapist Alba Aranda, who’s taking part in her first gallery show at Galérie Art Présent, 79 rue Quincampoix, a 2-minute walk from the Pompidou Center in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.

Alba is a friend of mine. Hers is a Paris success story-in-progress.

I first met Alba in 1992 when, a recent immigrant from Paysandu, Uruguay, she was earning her a living by cleaning and ironing. Her uncompromising devotion to her art over the past 18 years while holding down full-time work in offices and caring for the elderly has been inspirational.

But there’s more. Alba’s humor and her interest in others and openness to the work have been clear to me since early on in our friendship. But it’s through her artwork of the past few years and through her drive to create that I’ve most sensed the intensity and strength of her character.

In 2004 she embarked on a 3-year evening and weekend program to obtain a degree in art therapy from the School of Michèle Billiard, who uses a method of therapeutic painting developed in the 20th century by Dr. Margarethe Hauschka. Alba’s thesis was on the work of Mark Rothko.

Alba’s works in the collective show at Art Présent are NOT examples of art therapy per se though they naturally derive from an interior drive.

“My inspiration,” she says (in French), “comes from my interior, painting is for me an interior need. My painting is intuitive, spontaneous. The colors are my guides on paths unknown but marked by memories, by infinite spaces, timeless…”

I am in no way comparing the several pieces by Alba in this collective show to the work displayed in the museums and galleries listed above, though I do find the resonance of Monet in her Fragment 2010. But in case you don’t get to meet Monet while at the Grand Palais, well, on October 6, from 6pm-9pm, you can meet Alba along with other exhibiting artists. I’ll also be there until 8pm.

Galérie Art Présent, 79 rue Quincampoix, 3rd arr. The collective show containing Alba’s work continues through October 15.

Alba Aranda operates an art-therapy studio in Montrouge, the suburb along the southern edge of Paris, where she works with individual clients in French and in Spanish or simply in color.

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Rembrandt naturally looms large in any study of Dutch art of the golden age that was the 17th century, as well as any other period since then, and we all love to peek in on the goings on in a Vermeer home, but you have to look hard to find their works here.

That’s because this isn’t so much an art show as a history show that uses art to inform its viewers. It’s a didactic show that offers a very good overview of what made 17th-century Holland so golden and how art reflected and contributed to its brilliance. As appealing as many of the hundred some paintings and etchings, mostly on loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, may be, few inspire a prolonged or studious stare. And they are too diverse to add up to a single vision of art at the time, except to give a sense that there was a lot going on.

Actually, that “a lot going on” is largely the point. With relative freedom of worship, a wealthy upper class, and a growing middle class looking to decorate their homes with paintings as only aristocrats and religious institutions could elsewhere in Europe, artists were called upon—and called upon themselves—to explore (and specialize in) all kinds of subjects: still lifes, rural life, landscapes, cityscapes, family and individual portraits, religion, and daily life.

Shows at the Pinacothèque, Paris’s premier private museum, tend to rely heavily on the written word to make their point, and that is especially the case in this exhibition where the descriptions at the start of each of the show’s eight sections (in French on the wall, to be joined by text in English around mid-October) are important to understanding and enjoying the works.

Prepared by text, the viewer is then all the more willing to pause before works that serve as excellent illustration of the various angles in which life in 17th-century Holland, both artistic and economic, is examined: 1. the artists and their world, 2. still-lifes and applied arts, 3. the city, 4. the countryside, 5. religious images and objects (Rembrandt’s cameo), 6. the citizens, the regents and the aristocrats within the republic, 7. the republic and the Dutch East Indies, and 8. genre scenes/scenes of daily life (Vermeer’s cameo).

Altogether, The Dutch Golden Age (disregard the second half of the show’s title) is a highly informative show. Forget about Vermeer. And bring your reading glasses.

The Dutch Golden Age, from Rembrandt to Vermeer

Oct. 7, 2009-Feb. 7, 2010

Pinacothèque de Paris, 28 place de la Madeleine, 75008 Paris. Metro: Madeleine. Tel. 01 42 68 02 01. Open daily: Mon., Tues., Thurs., Sat., Sun. 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wed., Fri. 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Entrance: 10€.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

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