long walk to the petit palai (little palace) this morning - wanted to walk by the shops on Rue La Fayette and catch the last of the sales and maybe pick up clothes (or at least socks) before I head out for 2 weeks starting Saturday... no such luck, was just not in a shopping mood today. crazy numbers of french police on the rue faubourg st. honore (super-designer street), would have worried me but i've seen an even larger number of chicago cops in riot gear... these police were just hanging out. kind of wierd though.the petit palai is now a museum, i thought it covered the turn of the century and after, but it was more just before 1900. some pretty cool stuff, i was hoping for fauves etc though. they were obviously not on a par with the louvre or the musee d'orsay (they were free, how much can you really ask i guess). it was irritating though, they would label places "monet room" or "delacroix room" and then just have a token piece by the named artist and fill the rest of the room with lesser-knowns in the same style. meh. what they did have was pretty good, just not what i was expecting.
the building and space were pretty successful, i thought. the entryway was saved from being just another fancy building by the huge area of glass within the arch and gold frillwork, and having and arch entryway rather then column and pediment was nice. inside were a lot of mosaic and marble floors, very very tall narrow rooms with ceiling frescos, immaculately restored to the point of looking somewhat fake. shrug. glad i went, can't complain for free....
walk back (and there) was pretty fantastic, sunshine at last, lots of clouds but at least they were exciting clouds - big masses anywhere from rainstorm-charcoal to glowing white. crossing the place de concorde (with the obelisk) was especially cool with the large open space (and crazy rushing cars). 40 minute solid walk from the museum to my apartment. back in studio now, researching epaper and future building technologies and eye implants... fun in its own way.
sketch is a quick one of the petit palai from a while ago, i didn't have my camera or bag with me today. a bit of a shame, but it was kind of nice to not be thinking about framing shots - and walking without any sort of bag is a liberating experience.
