Les Jardins

On Wednesday we had a lovely day in the Jardin des Plantes. We intended to go to the zoo, but the long line at the gate talked us out of it. We love zoos, but I think lions and tiger and bears will look a lot the same here as they do at home. Maybe if we have a nice day in November we'll come back, early in the morning when it's not so crowded.

Instead we wandered the gardens and enjoyed the weather (I understand there was snow in Rexburg), then wended our way back home again via St. Severin, a great Gothic church that we had not yet visited.

Yesterday we visited the Bibliotèque National and tried to see the manuscript copy of Years of Youth, the Musorgsky autograph on which I did my doctoral dissertation, oh so many years ago. The autograph score was something of a mystery—it wasn't in Musorgsky's effects when he died, and then some years later it showed up in the Bibliotèque National. No one knows who put it there. When I wrote my dissertation I was a poor student so I had Arizona State's music librarian arrange with the Bibliotèque National to have the autograph microfilmed and sent to me. Now it seems that the score is no longer there. At least the librarian helping me could find no record of it. A cursory browse of the internet offers no explanation. A couple of recent dissertations on Musorgsky's early songs do not bother to consult the autographs (he says with a sneer). Another mystery. I must look into this further.

And another afternoon at the Louvre, one of the best yet. The crowds for some reason were smaller today, so we did Italian. I got some quality time with the five Da Vinci's that are not the Mona Lisa, and got closer than I have ever been. I was struck today by the careful blending of colors that must have been almost as labor intensive as polishing marble, and by the eyes that are only matched by Rembrandt for the intensity of their gaze. I also discovered two great panels by Veronese hiding in plain sight right by the entrance to the Mona Lisa room. These are the planetary gods—Venus, Saturn, and Mercury…

…and Jupiter, Diana, Mars, and Apollo. A masterpiece of foreshortening, nowhere does Veronese paint anything from a conventional angle.















We spent a long time in front of Tintoretto's Coronation of the Virgin; I do believe we frustrated lots of shutterbugs waiting for us to move so they could snap a shot. Pardon the bulge caused by my clumsy attempt at a panorama shot. But the vision of dimension after dimension of the hosts of heaven, reclining on clouds, starting back in awe, conversing, rejoicing, assembling in concentric rings like Ezekiel's wheels within wheels, just would't let me go. And such colors. Venice must have had access to a blue pigment that could be found nowhere else in the world. Everywhere else blue is a cool color. In Venice it is as warm as the summer sky.

We then intended to go home, but we made the mistake of going out the back door and walking by the Davids in the gallery of monumental French canvasses. Again I saw things I had never seen before. David's perfectly sculpted figures and carefully arranged canvasses are considered the height of French neo-Classicism. But I found out today that David is the visual version of Mozart—underneath the form and balance lies a passion that is all the more poignant for its self-imposed restraint. Here are a few examples:

Napoleon Crowning the Empress Josephine, detail from an enormous canvass. He has just taken the imperial crown out of the hands of the pope and placed it on his own head. Now he crowns his beloved Josephine. The look on his face says it all. He was madly in love with her, you know, even though he cheated on her and she cheated on him and he would eventually divorce her because she was childless and could not bear him a dynasty. But this, this is their moment.

Detail from Brutus Receiving the Body of his Son. First consul of of Rome, Brutus condemned his son to death for plotting to overthrow the Republic. Off to the right his wife and daughter weep and faint. Brutus sits alone and tries to live with himself.

And, from the Rape of the Sabine Women. In the midst of all the terror, the little one lying on the right puts his finger on his mouth and looks at us quizzically.

And these last two are for Kelly Allred, who complained that my blog doesn't contain enough pictures of mosses and grasses. I aim to please. Kelly, feel free to comment and tell us what they are.