My goodness, this city is full of art. My last day here, so a quick scoot firstly to the Musee d’Orsay where from so many highlights – indeed all the joys of Impressionism! Oh, okay, here’s one of Monet’s fabulous “Haystacks”, the series of paintings that inspired Kandinsky to abandon his career in law and become an artist.
Claude Monet (1840-1926): “Haystacks, End of Summer” [1891]
But I have chosen for my d’Orsay postcard an amazing sketch by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec: “A Woman in Profile (Madame Lucy)” [1896]…
I say ‘sketch’, but it is extraordinary how with apparently simple brush-strokes, gestural patterns of line and colour, the artist makes Madam Lucy so vividly present.
Then to the Musee d’Art Moderne and, oh my, Natalia Goncharova!
Firstly a “Still Life” (1911), then this mind-blowing “Two Spanish Women” (1930 or thereabouts):
In the gallery’s label, they quote a critic declaring: “these are not women, they are cathedrals!”
And to finish with a blast of full colour again, here’s Pierre Bonnard’s “The Garden” (1936):
so it’s Au Revoir to Paris (for now)!
thecommonviewer 