Musée Rodin

During our last week in Paris, Max and I went to the Musée Rodin. It's one of my favorite places in the city, and I hadn't been there yet! Max grabbed an umbrella as we were leaving, and it was a good thing because we ended up needing it.

It's funny, you can't tell in this picture, but it was raining buckets. That's probably the only reason The Thinker wasn't surrounded by people.

Max had read that the beauty of The Thinker is that his pondering is evident not only in his pose but in the details - in the muscles in his back; that his whole body is straining with the weight of his struggles. I studied it more carefully this time and had to agree.

The Cathedral is probably my favorite of his works. I think Rodin made amazing hands and this one especially moves me.

A museum guard was sitting on the sill of an open window, so there was no getting a picture without people. Still, since it was positively steamy in there, I couldn't blame him, and in fact was very pleased that he had the window open!

The Kiss is another favorite. When you see it from the front, it looks like the couple is sitting on the stone, but when you see it from behind, you can see them emerging from the stone. Just another reminder of the amazing work that sculptors do. 

(Of course, there were 3 groups of kids on field trips!)

This is a bust that Rodin did of Victor Hugo. He inscribed "To the Illustrious Master" on it.

I hadn't seen this painting before - a rendering of The Thinker by Munch (from Rodin's personal art collection).

I think it's interesting that they call preliminary works by sculptors "sketches." Here, sketches of hands and of Balzac.

I can't remember what this one is called, but it's a hand emerging from a grave.

We had decided to go inside the museum first and hope that the rain would abate, but when we went back to the gardens, it was raining even harder! I was disappointed because I love wandering through the gardens.

Still, I had to go see The Burghers of Calais.

Again, Max had read about it and what he told me helped me to gain a greater appreciation of the work.

From Wikipedia:

England's Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.

Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him.^[2]Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.

Although the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England's queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child.

Rodin's design was controversial. The public had a lack of appreciation for it because it didn't have "overtly heroic antique references" which were considered integral to public sculpture.^[4] It was not a pyramidal arrangement and contained no allegorical figures. It was intended to be placed at ground level, rather than on a pedestal. The burghers were not presented in a positive image of glory; instead, they display "pain, anguish and fatalism". To Rodin, this was nevertheless heroic, the heroism of self-sacrifice.^[5]

In 1895 the monument was installed in Calais on a large pedestal in front of a Parc Richelieu, a public park, contrary to the sculptor's wishes, who wanted contemporary townsfolk to "almost bump into" the figures and feel solidarity with them. Only later was his vision realised, as in 1926 the sculpture was moved in front of the newly completed town hall of Calais, where it rests on a much lower base.

La Porte de l'Enfer (The Gates of Hell) - based on Dante's Inferno. Rodin worked on it on and off for 37 years!

This is one of my favorite views. Even if that tree does need a haircut...

The museum was hosting an exhibit comparing Mapplethorpe works with Rodin works. You wouldn't think that would work, but it was actually quite effective. I didn't take any photos there, for obvious reasons :).

one of those days

Today was one of those days when I just feel done. Done with living in Paris. Done with being a mother. Just done. If I could crawl under the covers tomorrow and stay there, I would.

You may be wondering what the cause for this disconnect might be. You may still be wondering that after reading this post. It wasn't anything really big, just a string of annoyances that pushed me over the edge:

-- Eva didn't want to go to the Musée Rodin. Whining. Of course she ended up enjoying herself, running all around the gardens.

-- Everyone was starving. We grabbed baguette sandwiches and pastries. Lucas wouldn't eat anything but a pain au chocolat and was then whining because he was still hungry. Whining because the water bottle they gave him wasn't cold. Welcome to Paris.

-- More whining due to lots of walking.

-- We went to our usual exit from the Jardin du Luxembourg, but it was padlocked because some men were re-painting the gold tips on the fence (I should have taken a picture of that). We went to the next exit. And the next. I have no idea how far we walked around just looking for a stupid exit. Then we had to backtrack all the way back to get to the gelato shop. Did I mention that I was sweating buckets and my feet and knees were hurting?

-- We finally got to the gelato shop and they didn't have vanilla today. Lucas whining. (Let's not forget that he is 10. years. old.) He ordered straciatelli (kind of like vanilla with chocolate flakes). I forgot to get him a cone and he got his gelato in a cup. Actual tears. He ate maybe half of it. It cost 4 euros!

While in the gelato shop, Michelle said that I a whine connoisseur. It's not a distinction I would like to claim, but sadly, it is very true.

-- Michelle and girls + Max went to go to the Musée d'Orsay. Lucas started crying after they left because he wanted to go, too. He told me earlier that he wanted to go home with me. What the? (In retrospect, I'm thinking he must have been exhausted. He has not been getting enough sleep and he was up with a night terror last night. At the time, all I could do was be completely exasperated with him.)

-- Eva, Lucas and I crossed the street to catch the bus that drops us off right in front of our apartment. The bus stop had a sign saying that, due to a demonstration, the bus was not running. At this point I nearly broke down and cried.

-- We walked a whole bunch of blocks to get to a metro station. As I was carrying the stroller down the stairs, my left knee hurt so much I feared I would stumble and fall, dropping the stroller. I made it.

-- Lucas saw a sign for another bus that goes to our apartment. We exited the metro and walked a couple of blocks to that bus stop.

-- We waited half an hour for the bus to come. !!@$?

-- When we finally, finally got home, I abandoned the kids and flopped on my bed, a sweaty, furious mess. I read, dozed, and eventually got my core temperature back down.

-- I had to go back out to get groceries for dinner. I had to wait in line for half an hour to buy my overpriced groceries, then come back to cook!

Only at 9:30 p.m., when Eva was in bed, the dishes were done, and I had taken my antidepressant, did I start to feel like I might possibly survive this day. Then I loaded the 79 photos I took today. Some days (many days, actually), it's only the photos that keep me going. Truly.

To that end:


Kristen, Lucas, and Nicole doing their own version of The Thinker's pose.




I love Rodin. Especially the way he did hands and feet.




A random French woman wandering around with a baguette in her bag.

EXACTLY how I felt at the end of the day. The end.

more book club adventures

We have been so busy, there has been no time for blogging. We've been going to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and getting up around 8:00 or 8:30. Now that I have the time, I need to report on the last two days' events.

As I mentioned before, Amy had done some research on fabric and notions stores she wanted to check out. We went to the Mokuba store on Wednesday -- I didn't even know there was a Mokuba store in Paris! (Mokuba is a Japanese manufacturer of fine, high-end ribbon.) The store was just a delight, and Jenn, Amy and I were in heaven. We had to seriously narrow our choices since many ribbons were 15 euros per meter (or much much more!).



We had a great lunch at an Italian cafe. I ordered some plain pasta with olive oil for Eva, since I know it's one of the few things she will reliably eat. She ate quite a bit of it (for her), which was still only about 1/4 or less of the bowl. When we went to pay, I saw that they had charged me 10,90 for it! For plain pasta! Good grief.

Then we went to the Latin quarter to go to the chocolate bar, a place we had seen on one of our walks and wanted to try, but it was closed. It was closed yet again, despite the fact that we were there during their posted hours. France! as Collette would say...

I think was Jenn's 3rd foiled attempt at the Bar au Chocolat.

I brought Eva home to get her bathed and ready for bed, and everyone else headed to the Musee d'Orsay (dang, I can't seem to figure out how to type accents in Blogger). I'll let someone else post about the debaucles they encountered on that excursion. Suffice it to say that I think I would have been in a bad mood after that. They were in surprisingly good spirits and just laughed it off. France!

We had a good dinner at home that night. I discovered a raclette machine in our closet and thought that would make for a fun meal together. Raclette is a traditional dish from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France -- the machine heats up and every diner has a little metal tray that they fill with cheese and then slide it into the raclette maker. When the cheese is all hot and bubbly, you take out your tray and pour it over boiled potatoes or bread. It is served with ham or sausage, tiny pickles, cocktail onions, and sometimes saurkraut. It was a big hit!

That night, we had our book club discussion on The Devil in the White City. I was the only one who didn't get a chance to finish the book (bummer). I also liked it the least of anyone, so maybe I would have liked it more if I'd read the whole thing! Before the discussion, however, we all put on our t-shirts that Jill gave us for Christmas and took some group photos. Amy was in charge of the timer on the camera:

It was the end of the day, we were exhausted, and not looking so fresh. That combined with the fact that Jill kept doing things to make us laugh right as the camera snapped the picture made for some pretty hilarious photos. We were laughing hysterically -- Jenn, of course, was crying. We're all just excited that we celebrated a birthday in Paris (Jana's) and held book club in Paris. Pretty momentous.

Towards the end of the week, an urgency set in for people to squeeze in the last things that everyone wanted to do -- sites to see, shopping to accomplish. So we saw a lot more of people splitting up, everyone going their own way to make sure they could cross off at least the most important things on their lists.

So on the last day, those who wanted to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe went there first thing in the morning, and then everyone split up for "alone time". I was pleased to be invited to share Jill's alone time, since alone time with Jill can be even better for me than actual alone time. (Not to mention the fact that there was no possibility of me having actual alone time with Eva being my right-hand girl.) We headed to the Louvre.


Sadly, the thing Jill most wanted to see -- Dutch and Flemish paintings, namely Vermeer -- is closed on Thursdays! There were bars covering the entrance to that section of the museum. We could see in a little bit, so it was as if the museum was mocking us.


We saw some Flemish and French paintings, and some French sculpture.


I love it all, and honestly I love the architectural details of the buildings themselves so much, the surroundings compete with the art for my attention. It's just a happy place to be.

I love taking pictures of Jill taking pictures (so postmodern).

We were all supposed to meet at the Rodin Museum at 3:00. We were all quite concerned about Jana finding her way there, since she had been content to let others lead the way during the whole trip and had a crash course in navigating the Metro just that morning. (And then there is her dangerous propensity to flirt with strange French men! She told Jill she liked to think she was spreading sunshine on the Metro. Needless to say, she was strongly advised against spreading any more sunshine.) Imagine the pleasant surprise it was to see her waiting for us just down the street from the museum!


I love sculpture, and I love Rodin, so this museum is always a good stop for me.




Beautiful gardens are a plus, too! We found more delightful shady benches and plenty of trees made it hard to leave the gardens to go inside the museum.

Collette and I went home afterwards and everyone else went to see the Musee d'Orsay for real this time. (Since I didn't go on all of their expeditions, I don't have photos of everything -- yet.)

When they returned, Jill stayed home with Eva and the rest of us went to one of my favorite restaurants in my neighborhood so they could taste some real French food (I don't think cafes really count) on their last night here! I think everyone had a good dining experience. No photos of this one, unfortunately.

Collette finished packing early and went to bed. Everyone else stayed up until 2:00!