MUSEE D'ORSAY et MUSEE RODIN

간밤은 다행히 간만에 시원하고 평안하게 잤다. 새벽 6시 반에 일어나서 엄마랑 통화하고 계획 열심히 짰다.. 오르세미술관, 점심, 로댕미술관, 에펠탑, 저녁은 브라세리에서 먹는 것으로 계획.... 10시쯤 집을 나섰다.

Musee d'Orsay

open from 9.30am to 6pm daily, except Mondays 

late night on Thursdays until 9.45pm

last tickets sold at 5pm (9pm Thursdays)

museum cleared at 5.15pm (9.15pm Thursdays)

group visits, pre-booked only, Tuesday to Saturday, 9.30am to 4pm (Thursdays until 8pm)

closed on Mondays, on 1 May and 25 December

Lion assis [Seated Lion]

Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875)
1847
Plaster model
H. 200; W. 85 cm; D. 186 cm

© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Gérard Blot / Christian Jean

In 1846, Louis-Philippe commissioned Barye to produce a pendant for a statue in the Tuileries Gardens, Lion with a Snake. The two statues stayed in the gardens for over twenty years. In 1867, theSeated Lion was moved to the entrance then known as the Guichet de l'Empereur on the Quai des Tuileries, where it still can be seen today.

Since ancient times, the lion has served as a symbol of majestic power. The imposing stature, royal beauty and simple, masterly treatment of this lion command admiration. But the monumental stillness of Barye's lion was most unusual at the time. The iconography of Barye's animals broke so sharply with what nineteenth-century spectators were accustomed to see that this gentle-looking lion was sometimes portrayed as a ferocious, threatening wild cat. In a drawing by the famous caricaturist Cham, we see a passenger in the omnibus of the Tuileries "suddenly waking up nose-to-nose with Barye's lion" transformed into a roaring beast with a bristling mane.

 

Chicago Art Institute앞에도 사자상이 있는데 여기도 있구나. 시카고미술관 앞의 청동사자상이랑 만든 사람은 다르다.

어마어마한 미술품들이 홀에 그냥 무슨 집안 장식품처럼 전시되어있다. 프랑스 미술관들은 소장작품이 많아서 대표작들만 본다는 기분으로 갔다. 일단 사람이 너무 많아서 유명작들은 무슨 영화제때 배우 앞에서 사진찍는 사람들처럼, 혹은 아이돌한테 카메라 들이대는 팬들처럼 사람들이 와글와글 몰려있다.

밀레의 만종과 이삭줍는 여인들, 고흐의 자화상과 아를의 방이 오르세에 소장되어 있다. 

L'Angélus [The Angelus] 

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
Between 1857 and 1859
Oil on canvas
H. 55.5; W. 66 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

A man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. They have stopped digging potatoes and all the tools used for this task – the potato fork, the basket, the sacks and the wheelbarrow – are strewn around them. In 1865, Millet said: "The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed". So it was a childhood memory which was behind the painting and not the desire to glorify some religious feeling; besides Millet was not a church-goer. He wanted to catch the immutable rhythms of peasant life in a simple scene. Here he has focused on a short break, a moment of respite.

Alone in the foreground in a huge empty plain, the two peasants take on a monumental quality, despite the small size of the canvas. Their faces are left in shadow, while the light underlines their gestures and posture. The canvas expresses a deep feeling of meditation and Millet goes beyond the anecdote to the archetype.

Perhaps that explains the extraordinary destiny ofThe Angelus: it triggered an unbelievable rush of patriotic fervour when the Louvre tried to buy it in 1889, was venerated by Salvador Dali, lacerated by a madman in 1932 and became a world-famous icon in the 20th century.

Des glaneuses also called Les glaneuses [Gleaners, also called, The Gleaners]

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
1857 
Oil on canvas
H. 83.5; W. 110 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Jean Schormans

True to one of Millet's favourite subjects – peasant life – this painting is the culmination of ten years of research on the theme of the gleaners. These women incarnate the rural working-class. They were authorised to go quickly through the fields at sunset to pick up, one by one, the ears of corn missed by the harvesters. The painter shows three of them in the foreground, bent double, their eyes raking the ground. He thus juxtaposes the three phases of the back-breaking repetitive movement imposed by this thankless task: bending over, picking up the ears of corn and straightening up again.
Their austerity contrasts with the abundant harvest in the distance: haystacks, sheaves of wheat, a cart and a busy crowd of harvesters. The festive, brightly lit bustle is further distanced by the abrupt change of scale.
The slanting light of the setting sun accentuates the volumes in the foreground and gives the gleaners a sculptural look. It picks out their hands, necks, shoulders and backs and brightens the colours of their clothing.

Then Millet slowly smudges the distance into a powdery golden haze, accentuating the bucolic impression of the scene in the background. The man on horseback, isolated on the right, is probably a steward. In charge of supervising the work on the estate, he also makes sure that the gleaners respect the rules governing their task. His presence adds social distance by bringing a reminder of the landlords he represents. Without using picturesque anecdotes, merely through simple, sober pictorial procedures, Millet gives these certainly poor but no less dignified gleaners an emblematic value free of any hint of miserabilism.

Rousse dit aussi La Toilette [Rousse also called Toilet]

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) 
1889
Oil on cardboard
H. 67; W. 54 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

Toulouse-Lautrec has left countless pictures of women in private moments, often at their toilet. Here the woman fills the centre of the composition and is shown close up, offering the spectator a view of a sculptural back. The wicker chairs around her suggest that the scene took place in the artist's studio, rue Caulaincourt.

Although at the time the theme of a woman at her toilet was often treated, especially by Mary Cassatt and Bonnard, it was above all the naturalist influence of Degas which dominates in this painting by Lautrec. The neglect of the academic pose and the accelerated perspective rather unusual in Lautrec's work sound like an echo to the series of women at their toilet that Degas presented at the eighth and last Impressionist exhibition in 1886. The framing of the scene and the high viewpoint bring to mind the masterly pastels by Degas whom Lautrec deeply admired. Like his elder, Lautrec showed women "without their frills" as if he were "peeping through the keyhole". However, he differs from Degas in the humanity with which he observed and painted them.

This painting has led to a number of misunderstandings. Indeed, it has had several titles and its date has been changed. It has now been established that it was painted in 1889 and not in 1896 as is stated in the old catalogues. It is certainly this work which Lautrec exhibited under the name of "Rousse" in the Exhibition of the XX in Brussels in 1890. This title, chosen by the artist himself, recalls his preference for the red-haired models he painted all his life. 

시카고 아트인스티튜트에서는 로트렉을 전시하면서 세속성과 파리의 밤을 향한 풍자적 묘사를 강조하는데 오르세에 있는 로트렉의 그림들은 조금 다른 느낌이었다. 무대 위에 화려함보다는, 연극이 끝나고 난뒤 무대 뒤 사람들의 뒷모습에 대한 묘사. 애환부터 외로움까지 파리 사람들의 진짜 얼굴을 담고 있는 느낌. 아무튼 예상과는 조금 달랐다. 한 작가가 가진 broad spectrum을 하나의 peculiarity로 압축해버리는 미국의 특징때문일수도 있고 유럽의 미술관들이 미국식의 좋게 말하면 적극적이고 나쁘게 말하면 자극적이거나 천박한 세일즈를 잘 안하는(혹은 못하는) 것 때문일수도 있고.. 둘다일수도 아닐수도..

Portrait de l'artiste [Self-Portrait]

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
1889
Oil on canvas
H. 65; W. 54.5 cm
© Musée d'Orsay, dist.RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

Like Rembrandt and Goya, Vincent van Gogh often used himself as a model; he produced over forty-three self-portraits, paintings or drawings in ten years. Like the old masters, he observed himself critically in a mirror. Painting oneself is not an innocuous act: it is a questioning which often leads to an identity crisis.

Thus he wrote to his sister: "I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer." And later to his brother: "People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself, either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more than a view of nature, they are more like a revelation".

In this head-and-shoulders view, the artist is wearing a suit and not the pea jacket he usually worked in. Attention is focused on the face. His features are hard and emaciated, his green-rimmed eyes seem intransigent and anxious. The dominant colour, a mix of absinth green and pale turquoise finds a counterpoint in its complementary colour, the fiery orange of the beard and hair. The model's immobility contrasts with the undulating hair and beard, echoed and amplified in the hallucinatory arabesques of the background.

La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles [Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles]

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) 
1889
Oil on canvas
H. 57.5; W. 74 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

Van Gogh produced three, almost identical paintings on the theme of his bedroom. The first, in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, was executed in October 1888, and damaged during a flood that occurred while the painter was in hospital in Arles. Almost a year later, Van Gogh made two copies of it: one, the same size, is now in the Art Institute in Chicago; the other, in the Musée d'Orsay, produced for his family in Holland, is smaller.

In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent explained what had provoked him to paint such a picture: he wanted to express the tranquillity, and bring out the simplicity of his bedroom using the symbolism of colours. Thus, he described: "the pale, lilac walls, the uneven, faded red of the floor, the chrome-yellow chairs and bed, the pillows and sheet in very pale lime green, the blood-red blanket, the orange-coloured wash stand, the blue wash basin, and the green window", stating "I wanted to express absolute repose with these different colours".
Through these various colours, Van Gogh is referring to Japan, to its crêpe paper and its prints. He explained: "The Japanese lived in very simple interiors, and what great artists have lived in that country" And although, in the eyes of the Japanese, a bedroom decorated with paintings and furniture would not really seem very simple, for Vincent it was "an empty bedroom with a wooden bed and two chairs". All the same he does achieve a certain sparseness through his composition made up almost entirely of straight lines, and through a rigorous combination of coloured surfaces, which compensate for the instability of the perspective.

Femmes de Tahiti [Tahitian Women]

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
1891
Oil on canvas
H. 69; W. 91.5 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

In 1891, Gauguin went to Tahiti, an island he imagined to be a primitive paradise. The artist wanted "to live there in ecstasy, calm and art". His financial difficulties, his aesthetic concerns and this very Baudelairian "invitation au voyage" drove him to that distant land to escape "the European struggle for money" - to be "free at last".

This composition is typical of his paintings during the early part of his first stay in the Pacific, paintings often depicting Tahitian women busy with simple daily tasks. Here, the heavy, hieratic figures have their own space, creating a series of arabesques in a perfectly orchestrated harmony. The faces are rendered as a mask or a profile, rather indeterminate, but full of melancholy. Gauguin's wonderfully confident handling of the line makes it both elegant and decorative. By choosing somewhat rigid poses, he introduces a rhythm into the painting through a mysterious, harmonious geometry, thus producing what looks more like a genre scene than a genuine double portrait. The painting is lightly animated both by the discreet, almost monochrome, still life in the foreground, and by the rollers breaking on the lagoon in the background, suggested by a few white highlights.
The painter regarded this painting as significant enough to produce a variant of it in 1892, Parau Api(Dresden, Staatliche Kunstammlungen), in which the floral sarong replaces the sensible mission clothes of the woman on the right. The synthetic lines and simplified shapes of Manet, whom Gauguin admired greatly, influenced these contrasting outlines of the women. But above all, these characters herald the coloured effects of Matisse with their powerful graphic style and vivid colours.

파리 시내의 전경.

막상 오르세에 가서 가장 인상깊었던 그림은 고흐도 아니고 고갱이나 모네도 아닌 Henry Levi의 Sarpedon이었다. 

Sarpedon 

Henri Leopold Levy (1840-1904)

1874
Oil on canvas
H. 69; W. 91.5 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

트로이전쟁때 활약한 제우스의 아들 Sarpedon이 살해당하고 그 영혼이 잠의 신과 죽음의 신에 의해 붙들려 제우스에게 들려올려지는 장면이다. 

인상깊었던 이유는 아들의 영혼을 받아드는 제우스의 상징을 따라 Sarpedon의 아래에 잉태되는 신의 상징(새끼독수리)때문에...... 아무리 반인반신이었어도 그가 그냥 촌부의 삶을 살았으면 그저 그는 반인반신의 존재에 불과했을 것이다. 영웅적 행동으로 인해 죽음을 맞이한 아들, 아버지가 아들의 영혼을 받아드는 순간에 그 아들이 삶으로 고귀한 신분을 입증했음이 드러난다. 그리고 그는 반인반신의 존재에서 신적 존재로 거듭난다. 고귀한 출생만이 아니라 그의 영웅적 행적으로 인해 신이 되는 것이다. 

기독론 논쟁이 생각났다. 예수의 그리스도됨이 그의 선재성에 기반하는가, 그의 역사성에 기반하는가를 두고 신학자들은 이천년간 논쟁해왔다. 세상이 존재하기 전부터 세상과 무관하게 존재했기에 그가 고귀한 신이라면 인간이 그를 알아야 할 이유는 무엇인가? 그는 세계와 무관한데 말이다. 

오르세에서 건너다보는 풍경. 관람차는 튈르리 정원에 있고 멀리 있는 사원은 Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. 몽마르뜨로 더 많이 알려져있는 저 동네에 집시들과 소매치기가 그렇게 많다는데, 여기서 보기엔 마냥 평화로워보인다.

Musee Rodin

Open daily, except Mondays. Museum, garden and shop : open from 10am to 5.45pm. Last tickets sold at 5.15pm  

Late night opening on Wednesday until 8.45pm. Last admission at 8.15pm.

Museum closed on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.

The museum will close on 24 and 31 December at 16:45. Last ticket at 16:15.

로댕은 보고싶은 작품이 다 야외전시라서 밖에만 구경했다. 아름답다........ 덥고........ 특히 칼레의 시민들을 볼수 있는게 좋다. 전세계 12군데(프랑스 칼레, 덴마크 코펜하겐, 모랑벨츠, 영국 런던, 미국 필라델피아와 워싱턴, 로스앤젤레스, 뉴욕, 프랑스 로댕미술관, 일본 도쿄, 스위스 바젤, 그리고 한국 서울)에 설치되어있다. 1347년 1년간 항전했지만 영국에 의해 함락된 칼레가 전멸의 위기에서 영국으로부터 얻어낸 협상안은 칼레 시민의 생명을 보장하는 대신 지체높은 사람들 여섯명의 목숨을 바치는것이었다. 머리에 아무것도 쓰지 않고, 목에는 교수형에 쓸 밧줄을 메고 맨발로 걸어가 죽음을 당하는 굴욕을 감수하라는 것이 협상안의 조건이었다. 아마도 칼레 시에 굴욕을 안겨주기 위함이었을것이다. 이를 위해 여섯명의 시민이 죽음을 "자원"한다. 이로부터 노블레스 오블레주라는 말이 유래했다. 

요즘의 용례와는 사뭇 다르다. 요즘의 노블레스 오블레주는 "난 많이 배운/많이 가진 사람인데도 이렇게 자선을 베푼다고"를 강조할때 쓰이는듯하다. 오블리주보다는 노블레스를 과시하기 위한 천박한 용례가 되어버렸다. 본래 이 정신은 노블레스보다는 오블리주, 즉 자기 모든 것을 털어넣는 과부의 헌금과도 같은 정신이다. 자기 명예와 부를 과시하기 위한 적선이 아니라 목숨보다도 중요한 귀족으로서의 명예도 다 내려놓고 굴욕의 자리를 감수하는 극단적 희생, 자기비움에 가깝다. 고귀한 정신을 우리는 많이 잃어버린다. 돈때문에. 그렇다고 나부터 돈이 주는 편리함을 거부하지 못한다는게 문제다.

날씨가 너무 덥고 허리가 아프다. 30일에 마사지받은 이후로 허리가 많이 아픈데, 이전에 검진받으면서 의사가 내게 이 부분이 너무 심하게 굴절되어 있어요 했던 그부분이, 정확하게 많이 아프다. 걸으면 걸을수록 아파져서 견딜수가 없을정도... 디스크초기증상인가 싶어서 걱정이다. 빨리 사이요궁에서 에펠탑을 구경하고 집에 가서 좀 쉬기로