About the Museum D'Orsay for the exhibit "Masculine/Masculine"
"While it has been quite natural for the female nude to be regularly exhibited, the male nude has not been accorded the same treatment. It is highly significant that until the show at the Leopold Museum in Vienna in the autumn of 2012, no exhibition had opted to take a fresh approach, over a long historical perspective, to the representation of the male nude. However, male nudity was for a long time, from the 17th to 19th centuries, the basis of traditional Academic art training and a key element in Western creative art.
Therefore when presenting the exhibition Masculine / Masculine, the Musée d'Orsay, drawing on the wealth of its own collections and of other French public collections, aims to take an interpretive, playful, sociological and philosophical approach to exploring all aspects and meanings of the male nude in art." -text from the museum website: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html target="_blank"
Feigning embarrassment to pose above with such a still taboo subject and below signing the show guest book with a note of request to reference the bold outdoor billboarding at the Leopold Museum to include 'Mr. Big' that made the Vienna exhibit so groundbreaking even in 2013.
And while in Paris, it only makes good sense to visit one of the most fashionable shopping streets in the world,Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore to offer another form of appreciation of artistry. The courtyard entrance along the street above right so perfectly French.
The beautiful high lacquer painted entrances along the way. Rich brown double doors and chalk grey facades. Also, the windows at Lanvin reflecting the Hermes building. And while in Hermes below, viewing the new line of home furnishing fabrics
Me, at the famous crystal boutique Saint Louis to see the new pieces and stemware offerings to covet....
....and rendezvousing with Barney after to see he had better luck looking at glasses to be wearing a new pair of readers.
More inspiration at a Paris antique shop to keep clients in mind and find resources for future projects
The next day drizzling and in front of the Louvre with my Metropolitan Museum umbrella and the view the other direction as well.
Speaking of views, considering ourselves as 'travelers' to such museum destinations versus being on vacation trips, I have become very open minded with our last minute accommodations. It has become very important to me to make sure hotels offer an 'American idea air conditioning' during warmer months to travel for example and to ask for higher floors when possible. The later idea worked out well for what this hotel tower lacked in traditional french architecture, it made up in views. For the two nights in Paris to stay I was so enchanted by all I could see outside my window, and yet, when I turned around, all I could do was imagine gutting the hotel suite to begin it again as a proper artist's pied-a-terre to create.
