Le Marais: Part II (8)

Since Beth and I were feeling ambitious, we did both the Marias Part I and Part II walks à la suite--that is, one after the other. The second part of the walk took us through the Pletzel, the Yiddish name for the Jewish quarter. My favorite part of this walk would have been the Musée Picasso... if only it weren't closed until the 23rd of August for renovation. Pooh, pooh. Oh well! I guess that means I just have to come back.

The other museum on this walk the Musé Cognacq-Jay, which houses a lot of paintings, furniture, and objets d'art from the 18th century. We chose the right moment to do this walk, because in class, we had just finished discussing Baroque art. Seeing works by François Boucher, Frangonard, Greuze, de Latour, and Rubens reinforced what we had just studied. I think 18th century art is terribly romantic (obviously not Romantic, let's not mix our centuries!), and although I can only tolerate about an hour and a half of it at a time, that was about how long it took us to go through the museum. The French portraits from the period are charming, and reminded me of my favorite English portraitist, Thomas Gainsborough. See any resemblance?
[Quentin de la Tour, La Marquise de Pompadour, the rather famous mistress of Louis XV]
[Thomas Gainsborough, Mrs. Hibbert]

Obviously, they're stylistically a bit different. That stylized French face, neck, and hair... But de la Tour and Gainsborough were the most celebrated portraitists of the 18th century France and England respectively.

As for the rest of our tour around the Marais, there isn't much to say or see or describe. Yet I enjoy the quarter for its cool vibe!