LIZSAYS: It was blustery yesterday in more ways than one. The election was taking place and the wind was blowing rain in and out. As the clouds moved across the sky and voters moved through the polls, we shuffled in the cue for the Musee D’Orsay. Its a good place to go for a few hours. It has several temporary exhibitions at one time, not to mention gorgeous architectural details to explore and no less than 3 places to eat and drink. You can have something in the snack shop, cafe or nicely appointed restaurant. There was a line for the restaurant and after waiting in the line to get in, I was done with cueing for the day. Well, that’s what I thought anyway.
On the way to the Finnish artist’s show we decided to stop by the VanGogh’s and Gauguin’s. Bad decision, the gallery was packed with people gesturing in front of the paintings and chatting, sometimes about the art. So, we didn’t spend much time there. C’est la vie, we’ll visit them another day.
Back on track, we found the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela. If you are familiar with the light in Caravaggio or Vermeer, distill it down to an intense blowtorch and you have the idea of Gallen-Kallela’s eye. The portrait of a paper factory industrialist in his factory was really striking. I was drawn to the cool white light of his canvases, easily seen in the stark despair of a child lost (Perdue).
When I Googled him, which I suggest you do, I found the pictures on the computer gave the basic gist of his work, but the strength, the power of his palette are not quite available on my screen. One of his most famous pieces may be a portrait of him and his son skiing at night, the blues of the night seared by the red light reflected and emanating from their faces, showing the powerful pain of the Russian occupation of his country.
On to Degas, the nudes of Degas. He was never my favorite painter, not even my favorite Impressionist. On this occasion, after the strong folkloric beauty of Gallen-Kallela, the light colors and bathing nudes seemed almost washed out. It was like eating a hot pepper and then having a spoon of tapioca. My eyes just could not calm down enough to see it. There are a lot of drawings in this show. I am sure its great for art students and lovers of figurative drawing, but it just was not for me.
Once we were back out into the rain, we found a taxi. The driver was listening to the election talk. As we tried to suss out the information we passed a poster of Hollande and the driver said, “Say Hello to the future president of France.”
Well, there is still another election, but, if the taxi driver is any gage, Hollande has the thing all wrapped up.
*These are 2 very poor reproductions of postcards for sale of works by Gallen-Kallela.
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