Church of Saint Paul – Saint Louis

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Terry was using a Foders map to navigate various walking routes through the city. The map of Paris never seemed to show the name of the street we were on. I was almost bowled over by a baby carriage and an elderly lady as I searched for my bearings. We were walking on Rue Saint Antoine when we happened across this church which I recognized from Ronald Searle‘s sketch from 60 plus years before. I pulled his Paris Sketchbook out of my art supply bag and I searched for the exact spot he had sketched from. It was exciting when every line and angle matched up. In his day this was a working class neighborhood with vendors pushcarts and shops. Today the neighborhood has been gentrified with upper class fashion and jewelry shops along with some smaller bodegas.

As I sketched, an elderly man in ragged clothes and a boy stood in front of me speaking in French. I didn’t understand a word, so I shrugged my shoulders and kept sketching.  They persisted and the man pointed at the pens clipped in my bag. I decided to give him one of the dried up pens and satisfied, they walked away. If I knew some French I could have asked them to pose. Like everyone else, they seemed in a hurry. It was threatening to rain and there was a light drizzle, but not enough to stop me. Victor Hugo had his first child christened in this church. Everywhere we went, we seemed to be walking in Victor Hugo’s footsteps.

Daumier Studio

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Ile Saint Louis, a small island in the Seine River, is the geographic and historical heart of Paris. To help in my exploration of Paris, I consulted a Paris Sketchbook, illustrated by Ronald Searle and written by his wife Kaye Webb. My Paris map had a series of stickers marking the spots where Searle had sketched. This quiet Parisian street, Ouai d’Anjou was my first stop. The green door, number 9, was once the entry to the home and studio of one of my favorite artists, Honore Daumier. A small plaque next to the entry commemorated the spot. His loose spontaneous sketches of politicians and Parisian life are stunning, satirical and still relevant today.  At the Musee d’Orsay, I had seen some wonderful sculptures Daumier did of politicians busts.  They were exaggerated and lively. Of all the art I saw in Paris, I believe those busts were my favorite. I sat very close to where Ronald must have sat when he did his sketch. He didn’t sketch any cars which made his sketch rather timeless so I also ignored the automotive clutter. Ronald had added architectural details like extra chimneys to his sketch and I began to understand what he found appealing and lively in the scene. Over 60 years had passed, but I was learning from a master.

School children hurried home along the cobbled walkway. An elderly man was out for his afternoon stroll. While the rest of Paris rushed and hurried, this little island seemed serine, except for the tourists looking for Notre Dame. Life ebbed and flowed along with the river current, much as it had hundreds of years ago.  Terry had wandered off to explore the rest of the island and to walk among all the shops. She got a little lost trying to find her way back to this spot. I was so lost in the sketch and the moment that I didn’t notice the time fly by. We went to a bustling cafe and then continued to explore.

Paris Pickpockets

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Walking along the Seine River in Paris, a woman leaned down
in front of Terry and she picked up a big gold wedding ring. She offered it to
me, not knowing what to do with it. We had been warned about pickpockets so I
kept my hand in my pocket on my wallet. I checked for an engraving and handed
it back.  I told her she was a lucky
lady. A half hour later a man pulled the same stunt. I watched him lean down
with the ring in his hand which he pretended to pick up. He moved with slow
deliberateness and he could have won an Oscar for his performance of concern.
This time we moved away quickly.  I was
curious to find out the next step in the ruse. I think the idea was to get in a
heated discussion about the ring and then a second person would approach from
behind to pick the rubes pocket. Terry figured the stunt was an attempt to get
people to offer money for the ring. The ring looked like gold to me however. We
joked about walking along the Seine again to collect more rings.

The Metros in Paris are clean and run like clockwork.
Pressing into a crowded car, I again had my hand in my pocket covering the
wallet. My art supply bag was on my chest and the artist stool acted as a nice
lock to keep hands off my paints and sketch pad. Some guy dropped his keys as
he was supposed to be getting out. I ignored the keys stepping around him. He
grabbed the inside of my calf firmly but as I moved around a central support pole,
 the back of his arm got pushed up
against the pole and his arm might have broken if he didn’t let go. I figure
there must have been someone behind me as that guy’s keys distracted me. Luckily
my back pockets were empty. Then again the guy might have just wanted to check
out my calves. For the rest of my time in Paris, if I saw someone drop
anything, I felt the urge to push them over.

Grand Palais Paris

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The twelve hours of flying over the Atlantic was tough. I didn’t manage to get any sleep while Terry slept the whole way. Walking the streets of Paris for the first time made it all worth while however. It was fashion week in Paris which meant that every supermodel in the world was there to strut the runways. We were on the lookout for famous people as we walked down Avenue Des Champs Elysees away from Arc De Triomphe. The Grand Palais is where I stopped to do my first sketch. Terry explored inside the Petit Palais behind me while I worked. She said the interiors were magnificent. It was late in the day towards disk and it was uniformly cloudy.

I assumed all the trucks parked in front of the Palais were there to set up for a fashion show, but it turned out that one art exhibit was being removed while a huge Edward Hopper exhibit was being installed in the Galeries Nationales. There were police everywhere. Hopper is one of my favorite painters and unfortunately I was here a week to soon. Paris never runs short of amazing history and lavish architecture to draw from. Terry went to Les Editeurs Cafe for an amazing meal that first night. We sat outside and enjoyed the three course pris fix meal. The waitress helped me pick out a wonderful sweet white wine to compliment my meal.

Musee de Cluny

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Walking around our hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris, Terry noticed a poster for a Medieval concert. Terry loves Medieval music having sung with a Medieval chorus when she lived in New York City. The next day we returned to go to the Musee de Cluny for the concert. The concert took place in the Notre Dame Room which was filled with sculptures from the cathedral’s various stages of construction. 21 monumental heads originated from the gallery of the Kings of Juda (circa 1220-1230). They were buried during the French Revolution and discovered by chance in 1977.

The Musee de Cluny  is housed in two Paris monuments. The Northern Thermal Baths of Luteria, the only Gallo-Roman monument surviving in Paris, were probably built in the late 1st century and were active for about two centuries. The complex consisted of cold, tepid and hot rooms devoted to baths, physical exercise and underground rooms for administration, laundry and wood storage. The baths can be seen today from the street from behind black iron gates. They are an quiet open ruin with the hectic city life bustling around them. The one elevated room, the frididarium (cold room) was recently restored. The Hotel de Cluny was built on the site in the 15th century replacing the Parisian residence of the Cluny abbots that existed on the site since the 13th century. The museum today houses art from as early as the Roman Empire (51-58BC), the Middle Ages, Romanesque and Gothic Eras. Most of the sculptures, paintings and stained glass are religious in theme. The most stunning room is filled with the The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry set. These tapestries were lovingly restored and they cover every wall acting as huge cinematic storyboards.

The musicians spoke in French more than they played. I’m sure it was enlightening banter, but I didn’t understand a word. When they did play, the music filled the ancient room transporting the audience back in time. There was another artist sketching in the audience. I suspected he was local, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. I was in a city where sketching is the norm.

A Room with a View

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Terry and I took the Paris metro from the airport to Hotel Pantheon. We were delighted to find out that out that we had been upgraded to a room with a view. A municipal building in the square in front of the Pantheon had a wedding ceremony going on.  Colorful confetti was thrown over the coulee as they left the building. A crowd of guests stood in the street afterwards. A wedding photographer took pictures of the couple with the Pantheon as a backdrop. There was no mad rush to get to a reception. A large vintage sedan with its chauffeur was waiting at the corner.

This view was from the hotel window and it was the first sketch I did in Paris after I opened the window shutters. It was obvious from the start that there would be no shortage of interesting subjects in this city. Terry and I went inside the Pantheon to look around. In the basement there were catacombs with crypts. One room held the remains of authors Victor Hugo, 1807-1885, and Emile Zola, 1840-1902. The Pantheon had a huge pendulum suspended from the large central dome. There was an exhibit of original manuscripts from Jean Jacques Rousseau. Terry and I looked through but didn’t linger. Murals and statuary decorated every corner and alcove of the interior. One huge room housed a scale model of the Pantheon itself.

It was good that our hotel was near this major landmark since it helped us navigate back after we got lost on the myriad of angular rooked streets of Paris. Inevitably we were always lost since there was no grid pattern to follow.  Streets would often end at public places and only a few of thee street names ever seemed to actually be on the map. Once while I was trying to read the map, a little old French lady walked right into me to push me aside. She was like an ant unable to consider the notion of walking around. The country celebrates youth even more than America, so perhaps that is why the older ladies seem so bitter. I eventually abandoned the maps and wandered the streets by instinct and feel. Every turn would result in another stunning find so that is when the adventure begins. It only became important to get a feel for where the River Seine was in relation to where we were.