Saint-Valentin Week-end

I went to the pool 🏊‍♀️ yesterday. And to see if Saint-Valentines day was still going on. It was. ❤️

Wouldn’t it be fun if a macaron dispenser was in front of Pierre Hermé with 20 flavors? Just eat n run. 

Annick Goutal had swings full of perfume and flowers in their shop windows. Fragonard comes to my mind.

Did they think of Fragonard’s The Swing too? 

With an entire weekend to celebrate St-V day, everyone got in on the act. Monoprix has heart-printed PJs + a sage ❤️ quotation we should tell ourselves daily. 

‘On ne dit jamais non à de belles rencontres. Ouvres l'oeils. Elles sont partout’

❤️‘Never say no to beautiful encounters. 

Open your eyes. 

They are everywhere’. 

Naturally Natalie with bed-head, was gracing the bus shelters this weekend for Miss Dior. 

At 4:30 Sunday afternoon there’s a line outside waiting for Chocolat Chapon box of heart-shaped chocolates. Never too late to celebrate. 

Red socks to go...

With your red boots.

Essential red lunettes/glasses for your Paris penpal 💌 All these Valentines gifts are within 5 minutes walking distance of Place Saint-Sulpice in the 6th. You could do the works in a half-hour. Grab a bottle of Champagne 🍾 from the wine shop on bd. Saint Germain. 

I went home to continue painting rose watercolors. 

Paris’ buses had an ad on the back for drivers to consider.

‘ Expédiez votre lettres d'amour dans l'espace’ 

Send your love letters 💌 into space 

Last but not least, Paris lovers by the Seine at dusk. 

Voila dear PBers ❤️🌹Have a LOVELY DAY 💋

Creating the Saint-Valentin Map

 

Yesterday after shopping at the art store, I got on line at Au Nom de la Rose to buy roses to paint. 

It appears the New York Times thinks we should cancel Valentines Day!? 

It appears Paris hasn’t heard a thing about it.

 Everyone is tearing around, getting on lines, scooping up chocolates, heart-shaped cakes and heart-shaped balloons. Champagne and roses anyone? 

A while back I posted about Kati Marton’s memoir, Paris, a Love Story

 A quick re-look at the cover...add an umbrella. Add an Eiffel tower. My map sketch was off and running. 

                                     ❤️ Voila! ❤️

Some essential research was required. I ate the milk chocolate lollypop and 2 chocolate hearts in the mini red ❤️ box at Jeff de Bruges. I toyed with getting the pink heart mug but resisted. 

Since Valentines lands on Dimanche, Lenotre got the hot idea to deliver a deluxe Valentines brunch. 

Pierre Hermé miraculously got the same idea. Petit déjeuner + bouquet and Champers are included for 115€

The perfect message T-shirt to gift your guy from the Armand Thierry Love Collection, “Sorry, I already have the perfect woman” And yes Parisiens do mail out Valentines cards. 

They even design a new ❤️ stamp each year in collaboration with luxury houses for the occasion. This year Chanel celebrates the anniversary of No.5 perfume. Your penpal in Paris sent out the maps 📮 on Wednesday by the way. 

The Metro has posters of roses 🌹 as a reminder. 

Back at Au Nom de la Rose, red and pink is the color of the day.

I bought 3 roses to paint and they threw in little rose buds as a gift. Hopefully you can use your Valentine map next February PBers🙏🤞

 ❤️ Have a lovely Day ❤️ 🐻💋🌹

Secrets de la Beauté exhibit, maison de la Culture de Japon

In October I saw this poster in the metro and ran there same day. I have to stop running. I keep forgetting this is not New York 

The point is in this somewhat off the beaten track museum in the 15eme,  Maison de la Culture du Japon close by the Eiffel tower has consistently extraordinary exhibits. This one was no exception. Yes, more Japanese prints PBers. Bear with me please 

The walls of this exhibit are painted to match the woodblock prints in shades of coral and Prussian blue. The focuses is on essential everyday beauty treatments and accessories used by Japanese women of the Edo period.

Exquisite hand mirrors, compacts, powder jars, mixing bowls, makeup brushes.

A small lacquered set of drawers - all treasured works of art. 

How unusual that the finest artists of the day chose to record these daily beauty routines Everyone can relate to in prints.

Interesting that today’s beauty magazines bombard us with images of perfect, unobtainable women. Who can relate?  The work in process aspect is completely lost. 

This video of a contemporary geisha traditionally applying thick white paint to her face.

A woman checking the back view of her ‘do’. Who hasn’t done that? I should do it more often.

Miniature-sized sample wigs for women to choose their hair styles.

A woman standing before her mirror - an abstract, geometric mass of printed patterns. One foot, one arm and her head emerges, combing a long stream of hair. Immediately recognizable yet not very realistic.

No wonder Degas was an avid collector of Japanese prints, based his pastel bathers on these woodblock prints. Women, caught in an intimate moment, doing their daily ablutions. Nothing sexual about these images. A moment of everyday life captured.

Who would think the ‘Gibson Girl’s’ upsweep was based on elaborate hairstyles of Japanese women. But they are according to Japonisme expert Lise Martinot. The exhibit is on till March 6th 🤞 

Thank you for buying the new artists 6-pack It’s raining again today 🌂 in Paris. The other day was clear, in the 50’s. Parisians were perched on the banks/berges, contemplating the rising Seine, meditating. I grabbed a shot and ran as usual. This could be a Hokusai landscape ☂️☂️☂ 

Mount Fuji - pays de neige, Musee Guimet

If you live in the Northeast in the USA you woke up to 12-20 inches of snow this morning. Paris was a balmy 54 degrees. Coats and windows were open. 

A good time to show you an exhibit at Musee Guimet - Mont Fuji - land of snow. 

Japanese woodblock prints of the Edo period (1603 - 1868). They capture the infinite silence of snow gently falling. 

Here’s a very ‘Japanese’ snow scene from New York photographer, Noam Galai, taken yesterday of a Sabret hot dog stand.

Around 1830, 70-year-old Hokusai became obsessed with snow-covered Mount Fuji, as a symbol of monumentality. 

The titles of his prints are like haiku poems; 

‘Fine winds, Clear morning’ 

‘Rainstorm beneath the summit’ 

‘New paddies at Ono’

The introduction of Prussian blue pigment , a deep greeny-blue stain brought in by  Commadore Perry when he ‘opened’ Japan,

                  Added depth and  contrast to Edo prints. 

Check out Lise Martinot’s Youtube lecture(in French) on their influence.

In Musee Guimet’s terrific gift shop I bought an accordion book of bird prints now gracing my wall, most with Prussian blue backgrounds. By the way they have Hokusai ‘Great Wave’ socks and face masks. 

Claude Monet, like Impressionists Manet and Van Gogh, obsessively collected 250 Japanese prints for inspiration. They graced the walls of his famous yellow dining room at Giverny. 

Yesterday morning, the sky out my window was pale Prussian blue. Keep warm PBers🐻🎨❤️