David Hockney at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Société d’Équitation de Paris

 

Yesterday I thought I was headed to 🐎the races but I ended up at  DAVID HOCKNEY 25 at FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON. Go figure. Instead I hopped back on the bus, went 1 stop, & a nice walk through the woods.You can still get lost in Paris after 12 years.

Even the ticket is a keeper.

Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, musée d’Orsay

 

This week I visited the “Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, the last months” exhibition at Musée d’Orsay 2 days in a row.

The exhibit is on until February 4, 2024. Reserve now. 

A Japanese Bestiary, Maison de la Culture du Japon

 

A new show just opened at one of my favorite small museums in Paris ; a Japanese Bestiary at Maison de la Culture du Japon.

Organized with the Edo-Tokyo museum, more than 100 works of art showing how animals were integrated into quotidien life in Tokyo (18th - 19th century).

Paris Purple

 When a color or style is trendy/tendance in Paris

 You see it everywhere

 And not just in fashion or accessories like scarves...

 What about a purple/le pourpre bag/sac to carry your baguette home in?

 Purple CHOCOLATE lipstick?

 Purple/violette/le pourpre flowers will go well with you purple outfit

 The essential touch of yellow (the color compliment of purple) will make the purple that much more intense

 Yellow is directly across the color wheel from purple so they're buddies and will always enhance each other.

 Someone in the Metro was thinking about color compliments...

 And this poster designer too.

 Window dressers must be aware of how colors behave. It doesn't take much either - just a touch of the opposite color can do a world of good, like in this Printemps Xmas window with Dior dollies.

 A Disney dollie decked out in purple in Galeries Lafayette window surrounded by yellow flowers.

 Someone needs to drop a hint in this papeterie display, ahem

Greengrocers and boulangeries always know their color wheel. They play and display colors everyday. These eclairs could be bleu but surrounded by yellow they take on a purplish look.

What do you think?

Rouge et Verte

Laura of Lauralines asked me yesterday, "I'm amazed there are still photos coming from your last trip to Paris!! Did you pre-plan your blog entries and are now unveiling them, bit by bit, till the end of your stash?"

I wish I was that organized. It's more of a stockpile of Paris images randomly recorded. I love going through them - like being there again when I need a Paris fix, and ideas pop into my head in the process. Just made-up theories...

I mentioned there's a bit of a controversy over which is the more "Parisian" of the two cafés - Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots? In Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon, he wrote at length, going into historical factors and issues of snobbism.

He calls it , "the Two-Café Problem". It seems Parisians only want to be seen in the "right" café of the moment, even if it means waiting for a table when there are plenty of empty seats in the café across the street, says Q+a Magazine.
Well, here is my hypothesis, and it's based solely on color theory and nothing else. Color acts on us in unconscious ways and drives us to do things we hadn't planned. The absolute winner of color combinations is rouge et verte or the RED/GREEN combo. It's the best pair of color compliments of all three.
RED - GREEN
ORANGE - BLUE
YELLOW -PURPLE
red + green turns up where ever you look. Go to your corner grocery or Farmer's Market. The grocer intuitively understands color theory and never painted a color swatch or had to sit in color theory class for hours.

The RED tomatos are ALWAYS next to the GREEN peppers, lettuce, parsley etc. Christmas, who can avoid it, is a RED/GREEN holiday. RED roses have green stems and you see them every Valentines day, particulary in the hands of those who almost forgot ? Florists understand this intuitively. Red cherries have green stems, making them so much more appealing...someone up there gets color theory.
So what does any of this have to do with "the Two-Café Problem" you ask? Because the Café de Flore has the winning color combination - RED + GREEN. Les Deux Magots, malheureusement (unhappily), chose for their signature colors a creamy Naples yellow (my favorite color) + a deep forest GREEN. It's a classy combo, but it doesn't have the pulling power of the all-time winners, RED + GREEN.
Maybe I should explain a bit more about complementary colors. They enhance each other and effect the brain too. Complimentary colors sit across from each other on the color wheel. So what?

Well, if you have a predominantly green color environment and than add a touch of red, the brain will make that green vibrate like crazy and the red will sing out like Callas. Get the picture?
Café Flore's use of green as an accent color enhances those red chairs and makes it all the more appealing. Did you know that all important cafés in Paris have their own proprietary chaise (chair) designs and their own proprietary rattan weave as well? Maison J. Gatti is responsible for these. You can find them stateside at Cafe Society in San Francisco.
The master of the red/green combo is Pierre Hermé. I left a Kremer Pigments red color chart in his rue Bonaparte shop and realized belatedly that I'd forgotten to bring along the green color chart. Quelle disastre! Next visit in 52 days...

So, sorry Deux Magot, your signature colors are très classy and I'd take a set of your breakfast crockery anyday over Flore's. Your chocolate chaud is hands down the winner on the boulevarde, but you can't compete with the red/green combo. Adam Gopnik would have a good giggle if he read this... Nevermind color is powerful and even trés chic Parisians are not immune. So that's my theory on "the Two-Café Problem".