Parisian Splendour: Part Trois

Sunday morning I woke up early again to arrive at the Louvre before opening hours (9:00). I knew from the line I had seen the previous day that it would get crowded fast. I took the metro to the museum and entered through the carousel, the underground entrance which also includes a shopping center. Arriving early was great as I got in without having to stand in line. The museum is massive, so I went to the most famous wing first, knowing it would fill up fast. One of the first works I came across was the Nike of Samothrace:

This Greek statue was sculpted sometime around 190 BC and originally stood in a theatre. It depicts Nike, the winged goddess of victory and thus likely symbolized some military victory. After this, I walked through a great hall of paintings. These included Renaissance works by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and the strange paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo in which fruit, flowers, and twigs form portraits. Off of this hall was an open room which contained one of the museums most famous possessions, da Vinci's 1506 painting, Mona Lisa. This was quite impressive to see in person and a throng of people already gathered around the portrait which was roped off so that people could not get within five feet of it, and was behind several layers of glass.

I then walked to the basement of the museum which serves as a smaller museum of the history of the Louvre as a palace. Here, the original medieval foundations are visible:

and this model of the original palace was on display:

Back upstairs I went to the hall of Greek antiquities and saw another of the museum's famous pieces, the Venus de Milo:

The sculpture is Greek and originates from around 130-100BC. The arms of the statue have never been found. It was discovered on the island of Milos and possibly depicts the Greek goddess Aphrodite (called Venus by the Romans).

I walked through more of the gallery and saw a small section of Spanish art which included paintings by El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. I also saw some paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt. One of my favorite rooms was the collection of French Romantic paintings by Eugène Delacroix, Jacques-Louis David, and Théodore Géricault. These included David's The Coronation of Napoleon, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (a patriotic depiction of the feminine spirit of France, Marianne, leading Parisians in the 'July Revolution' of 1830), and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.

From one of the upper floors I took this picture of the courtyard and glass pyramid in front of the museum:

Underneath this great pyramid in the entrance/exit to the museum is this inverted pyramid:

I left the Louvre and met up with Melissa and Nicolas in the district known as Le Marais. We met near the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum of Paris which has an interesting, industrial exterior. (In the second picture, see if you can find a particularly French clown):

The museum was built in the 1970s. Outside is the Stravinsky Fountain by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle, although in this picture, the water is not flowing:

We went inside the Centre which also features a large public library. We walked through this for a while, past several people hunched in front of video screens wathing television streamed from America, England, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Hundreds of people sat at desks studying in the large, spacious floors of the library. It featured an enormous English-language section which included several rare American books.

Outside the museum/library, stood this typically Parisian apartment complex:

We then walked to the Jewish district of the city, located within Le Marais. This was an old disctrict with narrow streets and high buildings. Several traditional Jewish restaurants lined the streets. Sundays are particularly lively in this district as things that are closed elsewhere in the city are open there (Saturday is the Sabbath in the Jewish religion and thus the businesses in the area are closed on that day). We came across a school which had this plaque beside its door:

It reads roughly: "To the memory of the little children of this elementary school who were taken between 1942 and 1944 because they were Jews. They were the innocent victims of the barbaric Nazis who were assisted by the collaborationist Vichy Government. They were exterminated in the death camps. Never forget." In 1940, early in the Second World War, France fell to Hitler's Germany. The Nazis controlled the northern portion of France (which includes Paris) and established a puppet government under the leadership of the French general Marshal Philippe Pétain. Some brave French men and women joined resistance groups to undermine the Nazi influence in several ways including smuggling Jews and escaped Allied prisoners of war out of France. After the war, Pétain stood trial and was found guilty of treason. He was sentenced to death by firing squad, but President Charles de Gaulle commuted this to a life sentence due to his advanced age. (The ring below the plaque is used for hanging flowers).

We stopped at a restaurant and got a falafel and a Coke, then walked around the area some more. Here are some pictures of the Jewish district:

We left the Jewish District and walked around the Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris. It was constructed under Henri IV (who was involved in the French Religious Wars between Calvinists and Catholics and was assassinated) between 1605-1612. The place was used in the 1600s for military parades and royal cermonies. The houses along the place were some of the wealthiest places of residence and housed many famous Parisians, most notably Victor Hugo. Here are some photos. Notice the unevenness of the windows, which is mostly evident in the second picture:

We walked past this Medieval tower that was meant to be a church, but was never completed:

We then went to Les Halles, a shopping center. Mostly everything was closed because it was Sunday, but the area is significant because it was once the central market of Paris. It originated in the 1100s and merchants would come from all over selling their goods which included artisan products, food, and the exotic spices which once fueled the exploration of the world and produced wars. The markets closed in 1971 and were replaced with modernist architecture. The early 20th century iron shelters are the only relic of the once bustling center of the city:

Here is a modernist apartment complex (which I often associate with the Paris of the late 1960s) that stands on the edge of Les Halles:

Many Parisians (Nicolas included) hate the modernist architecture around Les Halles only because it obscures the splendor of the nearby Church of Saint-Eustache, a church named for the Roman martyr who claimed to have had a vision of the crucifixion appear to him between the antlers of a stag (this is the explanation for the symbol on bottles of the German liquer, Jaegermeister).

The church was constructed from 1532-1637. It was a famous site for baptisms with both the powerful (and corrupt) Cardinal Richelieu and the comedic playwright Molière being baptised here before its completion.

We walked through the adjacent neighborhood and came across a restaurant whose specialty was easily perceived:

From here we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower:

The Eiffel Tower is a 1,063 foot tall iron structure built between 1887 to 1889 for the 1889 World's Fair. At the time of its construction it was the tallest man-made structure in the world. It was designed by the French engineer Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel also helped construct the Statue of Liberty. Today it serves as a radio and television transmission tower and has become the most popular symbol of the city. (In 1912, the Austrian tailor Franz Reichelt fell to his death from the tower while attempting to demonstrate his haplessly-designed parachute suit).

After this, it was time for me to head back to the airport. Melissa and Nicolas rode with me on the metro until I got to the train which took me to the airport. We said our goodbyes there. I am truly grateful to them for acting as hosts and guides to their city.

When I got to the airport I learned my flight had been delayed, as it had been in Rome. I walked around the duty-free shop and perused French wines and cheeses. I picked up a copy of the free airport magazine and read an interview with Audrey Tatou as a collection of Parisians and Madrileños slept in their chairs around me.

The flight seemed much longer than the one into Paris. When I arrived in Madrid, the metro and train stations were closed, so I had to take a couple of buses to reach Alcalá de Henares. I arrived at my apartment somewhere around 4:30 in the morning. The next day of work was rough, but I caught up on my sleep during the rest of the week.

More to come soon as Cody and I moved to a new apartment and I discovered a very cool Madrid neighborhood.

Castilian Culture

In Spain, there is a New Year's tradition that as the last twelve seconds of the old year tick away, you must eat twelve grapes, one with each second. The success of this difficult task will present the victor with good luck for all twelve months. Television commercials advertise tins full of twelve grapes. I did not participate in this tradition, but I was in Italy for New Year's and the tradition does not exist there. I think this makes me exempt.

On the Thursday before classes started again I went to Madrid and visited the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, one of Madrid's three major art museums. While the Prado focuses on art from the Renaissance to the 19th century and Reina Sofia, on modern art, the Thyssen has an interesting layout which starts on the fourth floor. The entire museum is a private collection of a baron and baroness and it is dedicated to the history of Western art. The top floor includes late medieval paintings and early Renaissance paintings with works by Caravaggio and Raphael being the primary exhibits. The third floor features late Renaissance Spanish art (especially Zurbarán) and the painters of the Low Countries, like Rembrandt and Rubens. The next floor down feautres art from 1700-1900 with paintings by several famous artists including Van Gogh, Goya, Degas, Winslow Homer, Gauguin, James Ensor, Caspar David Friedrich, and the strange landscapes of the American painter Thomas Cole. The ground floor included art from the twentieth century starting with Picasso, Dalí, and Miró, then moving on to later artists like Jackson Pollock, Balthus, Lucian Freud, and the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. The newest painting was a portrait painted in 1998 by the American artist John Currin.

After the Thyssen, I got on the metro, deciding to visit the Madrid bullring, or Plaza de Toros de las Ventas. The ring was closed as the season does not open until March. A circus had instead opened up in front of the ring. The building was completed in 1931 and is built in the Mudejar style of architecture which evokes the Muslim architecture from Spain's past. A few monuments to slain matadors stood in front of the bullring. The origins of bullfighting are not entirely evident, but it is an ancient event from the south of Spain (Andalusia) which may have roots as a sacrificial religious ritual.

The first day back at school was accompanied by two or three inches of snow in the whole Madrid region. School was closed, but we still showed up and acted as a day care for the children whose parents had to work. It was a slow transition back to school mode for the kids as many of them had not spoken English for the entire break. The kids have been working on various projects for their classes such as posters of various ecosystems. One kid drew a giant penguin on his poster of the arctic and told me, "Look! It's very big. It's Guiness record."

Last Saturday a group of us got together to go to a soccer match in which James and Kevin's new roommate, Jeff, was playing. It was played in a Madrid suburban neighborhood called Vallecas. Emma, James, Cody, and two Minnesotan girls who live in Alcalá whom we just met, Katie and Kelsey, went to the match. In this first picture from left to right is Emma, Kelsey, and Katie. The next picture from left to right is me, Cody, and James.

After the soccer match, we all took the metro to the old part of Madrid and got drinks at a strange tapas bar near Plaza Mayor which I hope to return to many times because of its odd ambiance. It was called Rey de los Pimientos (King of the Peppers) and was covered with metal objects. A piece of paper taped to the building showed a photo of a snail and read, "Hay caracoles" or "We have snails." Inside, the bar was dimly lit and the walls were covered with decorations which reminded me of some American roadside collector's garage. A naked Barbie doll, spray-painted gold, was wired to the wall. Several dried gourds hung from the ceiling. A mounted goats head which had seen better days guarded the bar with an extra horn affixed to a wire dangling from its neck. Either a glamour shot or a missing persons photo of a young blond girl from what looked like the 1990s was taped behind the bar. And, yes, they did have snails. Lots of snails. All dead and covered in a thin, grey gravy behind glass among the other tapas (which included the titular peppers which the owner of this estasblishment reigns over). The woman who served us our drinks was equally odd. She was in her thirties, had red hair, and wore a pink t-shirt which had a wide enough neck to expose one shoulder (a la 1980s) and was emblazoned with a glittery picture of a kitten swatting at butterflies. She seemed to have a face like a doll, in that it was unblinking and unmoving with her head tilted to one side and her eyes constantly looking slightly downward and a strangely inert smirk. She never said a word as she gave us our drinks and free tapa (microwaved baked potato). We left after one drink, but the whole experience made me want to come back soon.

After the weird bar, we took the metro to Gran Vía and ate at a pizza place there which was quite fancy, but reasonably priced. I had a hamburger pizza which had an entire hamburger patty (whole), a fried egg, ham, and carmelized onions. After eating we were joined by Becky and Gavin, Emma's British and Irish friends who had joined us at the English tea room in Madrid months ago. We all then spent the majority of the night visiting different clubs. It was a traditional Spanish night, which we had all been planning on having. The Spanish stay out all night most nights, eating, drinking, dancing, and socializing and then get on the bus to go to work. The only difference for us was that we didn't have to work the next day. No wonder the Spanish invented the siesta. This first picture is, from left to right, Gavin, Emma, and Becky:

Here is a picture of "dancing." Left to right: Becky, me, and Kelsey:

And a rare picture of Cody on a dancefloor:

It was a fun night, but I was very tired the next day when Cody, James, Emma, and I met for lunch in Alcalá. I had a cold seafood salad called salpicón de mariscos for my first course. It contained onions, crab meat, shrimp, and squid with a vinaigrette. For my main course I had honey-basted pork ribs and for dessert rice pudding. It was all delicious.

This week the weather has started to warm up and the sun has come out, which is typical of late-January in Spain. I'm settled back in to teaching and tutoring. I'll post more soon.

Sunday in Madrid: History and Art in Spain

Yesterday Cody and I went to Madrid. Most museums offer free admission on Sundays so we planned to visit the Museum of Archaeology and the Prado. We entered Madrid by train then took the Metro to the Plaza de Colón, which is dedicated to Christopher Columbus (or Cristobal Colón in Spanish). There is normally a pillar in the center of the Plaza, but it was taken down for renovation. The Plaza is decorated with modernist sculptures which display engraved text concerning Columbus' voyages. Also visible from the Plaza are the Torres de Colón (often called "the plug" by Madrileños for obvious reasons).

Next to the Plaza was the Museum of Archaeology. It contained several of the most well-preserved artifacts from the ancient Iberian culture. The sculpture of the Iberians and their architecture reveal an advanced society, but we know very little about them (other than what the ancient Greeks and later the Romans wrote about them) as their language has yet to be decoded. They traded gold with the Greeks and were separated into several societies throughout Spain. The statue below is the most famous Iberian sculpture, the Dama de Elche, the clothing of which matches that described by the ancient Greek historian, Strabo. The statue comes from the fourth century BC and was found on the Mediterranean coast near Valencia:

There was also this statue believed to be part of the religion of the Iberians:

The museum also held objects from the Roman occupation of Spain (or Hispania as the Romans called it, giving the modern country its name) including this statue of Urania, the Muse of Astronomy. It was sculpted nearly two-hundred years after the Dama de Elche:

The museum also held a small collection of Visigothic items. The Visigoths were a Christian people who acted as stewards of Spain for the Romans during the collapse of the Roman Empire. After the Empire fell, the Visigoths controlled Spain until the Moors of North Africa conquered the peninsula. Here is a symbolic crown given to the church by the Visigoth King Recceswinth. It is believed to have been made around the year 655:

The museum contained some artifacts from the Muslim era. The Moors invaded Spain in 711 and slowly expanded their influence to control most of the southern peninsula. The Muslims of Spain had many scientists and philosophers and for a while lived in harmony with the Jews and Christians in what was known as the Kingdom of Al-Andalus (the province of southern Spain is now known as Andalusia). Here is an astronomical map dating from the period. It is inscribed with Arabic script:

As time progressed and a new, less tolerant dynasty took control of Al-Andalus, the relations between the Christians, Muslims, and Jews grew worse. The Reconquista (which had various and complex origins) saw the Christians take control of the Spanish kingdoms once again. In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs, Fernando and Isabel, forced all the Jews and Muslims to either convert or leave Spain. The Inquisition followed. The museum had a number of artifacts from this era of medieval Spain, including this statue of a penitent nobleman:

The museum also had a small collection of royal trinkets from the early decades of the Spanish Empire.

From the Museum of Architecture, we walked down the Paseo de la Castellana, a tree-lined street which heads to the modern financial district of Madrid, known as AZCA. Along the way, I spotted this sculpture by the contemporary Colombian artist Fernando Botero:

A few miles down this street, we ented the AZCA district and saw the modern part of Madrid which includes the rounded Torre Europa (built in 1985) and the leaning towers of Puerta de Europa (finished in 1996):

From here, we took the subway back across the city to Gran Vía and walked to the Plaza de España, in the center of which stands a giant monument to Miguel de Cervantes:

From here was a short walk to the Temple of Debod. This is an Egyptian temple from the second century BC that was given to Spain as a gift for the Spanish government's aid in the preservation of several Egyptian monuments. The temple was reconstructed stone by stone on a hill overlooking the city. This creates an odd sensation at first as the last thing one expects to see when walking through a European capital is an authentic ancient Egyptian temple.

From here, I had this great view of the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and the Catedral de la Almudena:

We then headed to the Prado, one of Europe's largest art museums. We stopped at the adjacent Parque del Retiro and saw some musicians, then headed up the Paseo del Prado. Along the way, I saw this modern art museum, which I am assuming is "green":

We then came upon the Prado, which houses European art from the Renaissance to the 19th century. Most of the collection is Spanish art, focusing on El Greco, Diego Velazquez,

and Francisco de Goya.

The museum does not allow photography, but I would recommend everyone search for the paintings of these artists online if you have never seen them. Soon after entering the museum, we ran into Priscilla, a girl from New Jersey who lives in Alcalá de Henares whom we met through Kevin and Liz. The three of us toured some of the museum. The El Greco collection was relatively small as most of his paintings are located in a museum in Toledo.

I saw the museum's Velazquez (the great Spanish painter of the Renaissance) collection. This included his royal portraits and the painting of the royal dwarf (a court jester), Don Sebastián de Morra. The mythological-themed Los Borrachos was also there. The largest crowd in this wing of the museum surrounded his most famous painting, Las Meninas, a single painting on which entire books have been written. The painting has a mysterious quality. It was commissioned as a royal portrait of King Felipe IV and his wife. Velazquez decided to paint the portrait from the perspective of the royal couple (or some other figure) instead of his own. The result is a painting of the princess with her chaperones watching her parents as Velazquez stands at his canvas in the corner. In the distance a mirror reflects the royal couple.

I also saw a portion of the museum's Goya (my favorite artist) collection. I was able to see his royal portraits and the two sister paintings The Clothed Maja and The Naked Maja which were displayed side-by-side. By looking at his portraits up close, you can see how talented Goya was at differentiating between textures. Some of his smaller paintings of festivals were also on display on this floor. The lower floor contained his later paintings which took place after Napoleon's invasion and the resulting Spanish rebellion of 1808. We didn't get to this part of the museum however, as it was closing. We also saw paintings by the Dutch artist Rembrandt and the Flemish/Dutch Rubens' The Three Graces. We spent nearly three hours in the museum, but saw only a small part of it (only one of three floors). I plan on going back to see the rest of the Goya collection and The Garden of Earthly Delights by the odd Rennaisance-era Dutch painter, Heironymus Bosch.

After leaving the museum the three of us headed back to Alcalá on the train after eating at a sandwich shop. I was exhausted after the two days spent in Guadalajara and Madrid and went to sleep as soon as I returned to the apartment.