france part four

MUSEUMS, CHURCHES & CEMETERY:
we decided not to try going into the louvre. given our time constraints we felt that our hours would be more usefully spent in other historic places, such as the musee d'orsay, which contains a mind-blowing amount of famous, priceless art. housed in an old train station (built in 1900), the museum is almost completely lit by overhead skylights, which gives the atmosphere a bright, even, and serene quality immediately as you walk in.
some of picasso's drawings were especially enthralling to me, on a purely technical level-- later drawings where he depicts his model as a voluptuous young beauty and himself as an old lecher or a beast. the van gogh area of the passing exhibit was teeming with people, which was annoying because it was almost impossible to really appreciate the art in that kind of crush; on the other hand, it made me happy to think how happy these artists would be to know that people were still flocking to the work, discussing it passionately, gazing at it, deriding it, drawing parallels and puzzling out odd choices. the place was like a beehive. i've already mentioned manet's 'olympia' and 'portrait of emile zola' right next to it. the latter includes a portrait of the former, as art aficionados will know. we also enjoyed looking at works by degas, cezanne, klimt, munch, cassatt, monet, renoir, courbet... and i was a little mesmerized by cordier's 'sudanese negro' sculpture, which seemed so alive as i walked by it.
the other paris museum we visited was the pompidou centre, which is built 'inside-out,' with a sort of scaffolding exoskeleton and tube-like exterior escalators. at first glance it looks like a building you'd see in a dream, a place full of unpredictable contents, a place you can't wait to go into. this museum was established by french president georges pompidou, a modern art lover, in the early seventies. inside are five or six floors of modern art. we visited a really cool children's installation, where kids got to choose four or five images from a computer screen (eiffel tower, apple, peace sign, heart, skull, etc.), have their picture taken, and have all the chosen images stack themselves one by one like a totem pole on a large screen, each accompanied by a different sound effect, topped by the child's picture and a sweeping harp glissando at the end. the modern art on the top floor of the museum was copious, diverse and absorbing-- sculpture, painting, photography, video... it was yet another treasure trove of human expression, worthy of hours of lazy strolling, gawking, grinning and discussion.
which takes us to the churches.
notre dame, as i mentioned, was a little hectic, which didn't necessarily detract from the experience, since one expects notre dame, naturally, to be overrun with tourists. i took some good pictures of the beams of light coming down through the staggeringly gorgeous stained glass windows into the dark atmosphere of the cathedral.
sacre coeur was less hectic, and the main reason for this was that there was a service going on at the time of our mid-morning visit. as we climbed the final set of stairs to the church, jesus looked down at us from his alcove over the front entrance. inside, the priest was praying and the nuns were singing. the atmosphere was hushed. the church was full of light, the almost modern-looking windows emitting tranquil shades of color. the nuns' voices rang beautifully in the cathedral. i was moved by something that has occurred to me before: small humans, producing all this beauty, trying to understand the mystery of this existence, deciding to spend their time in an activity called worship. it sounds like an analyzation when put into words, but at the moment it was a feeling in my heart that stabbed me a little, which i was ready and grateful for.
by the time we got to pere-lachaise cemetery, it was about 3:45 pm. we strolled on the paths and i for one felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of gravestones around us. how would one ever find anyone's grave, without a guide? fran wanted to find abelard & heloise; i made my desire for moliere known. but at 4:15, as we were sitting on the curb taking a brief rest, a man drove up to us in a golf cart and said we needed to leave, that the cemetery was closing.
someone made eye contact in the subway-- a lover from a future life. back at the hotel we ate cheese and bread, drank wine, and smoked cigarettes on the balcony before turning in. i listened to people on the street below: walking, singing, screeching... alive!