La Naissance

I spend my day at the Musee D'Orsay on the left bank of the Seine. It used to be the railway station Gare d'Orsay which itself an impressive Beaux-Arts completed in 1900. The museum perhaps best known for its impressionisms and mon dieu it is an orgy. The fifth floor delivers the action covering Monet, Chegall, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Saurat, van Gogh and all the others. It is joyous. I happily recognise paintings from the National Gallery or the Courdault, which has an efficient little collection. I was particularly struck by Auguste Rodin who I know for statue most famously "the thinker." His detail like a photograph and colours masterful. A turnip in purple-grey-white with expressive green shoots; a windmail so fine I cannot for the life of me see brush-strokes. Unlike the other works, Rodin’s water colors kept behind glass and temperature cooled. I also absorb Max Ernst, whose exhibition cover various moods named to days of the week and extraordinary. They are violent, moody, mysogonistic.. they contain dandies with rooster heads spanking bare flesh or tying their muse to bloody wire. Another set repeats a sleeping women surrounded by lapping water while taylored men watch or fondle.. sometimes an oversized leech appears displaying its sucker-end. Disturbing comes to mind; nightmarish also. He was one mad fucker. Painting "La Naissance de Venus" by William Bouguereua (1825-1905)

One day I would like to plan five days to conquer the Louvre but this for the retirement era.

Meanwhile, getting to the D'Orsay I talk to my taxi driver who looks like Luc Besson: unshaven, greasy hair and soft, drooping eyes full of energy on this wonderful sunny morning. During our discussion about Paris this or that, he takes a call and his 18-year old boy has received his baccalaureate results. Evidently they are good and I wish him joy; we discuss our kids and football; life in France. It is all practice for me, and we shake hands at departure.