July is Cat Tea Salon Month

 

Cat  month is not until September according to the CATalyst Council. For me it falls in July. It did last year too.

With all the cup class ☕️ painting lately, I told Bonnie I was going to do a pretty cup letter of Paris. She said  GREAT 👍

Impressionism and Fashion

Wednesday January 9, 2013

Time to rush see the musee d'Orsay's Impressionism and Fashion before it closes January 20th. It is coming to the New York Met in the Spring but these shows are never the same in my opinion.

Stripes were big back then pre-Sonia days in the 1800s. Who knew? I brought along a sketch pad in case I couldn't take pictures but...



And polkadots! Loved this purple dotty and striped number worn by Prosperie de Fleury in 1881



Loads of daguerretypes on display to document the trends of the time...



Bows, bows, bows! I saw a wrist bow bracelet on one of the sales going on today. Bows are forever in France.



And perfume of course. Always perfume.



Black was big I suppose thanks to Queen Victoria, as in this opera spectator by mary Cassatt.



The almighty parapluie/umbrella makes a fashion statement in this Caillebotte painting set in an Hausmannian street. G. says the French will open an umbrella whether it's raining or not. They do look swell...



And make such wonderful silhohuettes...



The darling Dog of the Day in a familial setting with Vichy checks in the background.

 

What better accompaniment to eat after the d'Orsay exhibit than a frou frou marron eclair from patisserie Gosselin just at the corner of rue de Belle Chasse...

Did you miss out buying your ticket at the news kiosk on the corner? And instead wait and wait on line to get into the d'Orsay? I hope not. *Hold onto your ticket stubs by the way and gain free entry to the extraordinary Gustave Moreau musee in the 9th + the Opera Garnier tour.

Oh and don't forget your brollies!



 

Edouard Vuillard, A Painter and his muses

 This terrific view of Place de la Concorde is from the book called, Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard (Phillips Collection)

 Yesterday I went to The Jewish Museum to see Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and his muses, 1890 - 1940

 So many snapshots are included taken by Vuillard. He loved to include mirrors and their reflections in his paintings.

 Here he's standing in the corner recording a luncheon. 'Vuillard sometimes used snapshots as studies or sketches toward paintings, but in their cropping, the relations of light and dark tones, and their unusual viewpoints, they bear the imprint of his personal aesthetic vision'.

 The casual patterned, truncated quality of this painting is simplified like a photograph.

 A famous portrait of charmer Madame Misia Natanson, loved by all artists in Paris (Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Romain Coolus, Octave Mirbeau, Tristan Bernard, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel) at the time. There's an exhibit devoted to her on at the Musee d'Orsay if you're in Paris.

 Nearly 2,000 of Vuillard's small format photographs survive.

 Portrait head painted on cardboard by Vuillard.

 Many of Vuillard's figures are caught in repose, reading, writing at a desk. 'As often in his work, there are passages where objects merge with ground and become nearly abstract...'

 A family portrait with most of the figures reading...

 Vuillard plays with 'lost and found' edges here so the figure merges often with the background color.

 'In this signature 'Nabi' work Vuillard embeds his figure in a compressed space packed with competing patterns and suppressed emotion...'(from the wall placard)

 Karen Wheeler introduced me to the Maire of Anche, Martine. When she sat down to write something in the town's books, I said to her,

'You're a Vuillard painting!'

 After seeing yesterday's exhibit I did my 'Vuillard' version of Maire Martine...

Vuillard's images of people reposing, reading and generally lounging about spells summer all over it. The exhibit is on until September 23rd. Don't miss it!