Seizième Arondissement Walk (13)

Yesterday I took this walk with-my-by-myself (if you don't get the allusion, go watch SNL's parody of the Lawrence Welk Show on Hulu), which was a nice opportunity to sort my thoughts and wander a bit. The 16th district in Paris is a hilly neighborhood and quite a snobbish one at that.

As a passive fan of Art Nouveau, the architectural highlights of this trip were the buildings designed by Hector Guimard, like Castel Béranger:

Oh! I love that font! See it up in the left hand corner? Yep, that's his signature.

Next I wandered up past the home of the famous Realist/Fantastic/Romantic author, Balzac (who's photo is so epic it's worth including).


But this was all a build up to my favorite part of the walk, Musée Marmottan, which houses many of Monet's most famous works, including Soleil-levant:

That piercing orange is so striking! I like, I like, I like. As I wandered through the Monets listening to Dvorák's New World Symphony, I actually discovered that while his waterlilies are nice, my favorite paintings of his are not the blue-green-purple tones, but rather his paintings in yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks. Perhaps it was my humor, or perhaps it was the rain outside, but the cool hues left me unsatisfied, while the vibrant yellows brightened my soul! (Sorry, Paris is contagiously poetic)

The other most excellent thing I saw at Musée Marmottan was one of Monet's paint pallets. So cool! It looked itself like one of Monet's paintings. It also struck me that often, Monet leaves some canvas visible--he won't paint all the way to the frame, or leaves naked patches between brush strokes, although they're barely visible.

Overall, this museum is very much worth the visit.

As I left the Museum, the sky opened up and I was caught in a torrential downpour, which, though short, left me very wet. I headed to Judy's and watched a movie while waiting for my clothes to dry. Have you seen 500 Days of Summer? I very much enjoyed it.