Paris in July 2021 Part 1

 19/07/2021

On the 8th July, after a week of preparation, a 21hr flight with my mask on and a lot of uncertainties, I arrived in Paris with my dad. The preparations involved asking for an authorisation to re-enter our country on the Electronic Travel Information System (ETIS) platform, an electronic travel authorisation, a proof of vaccination for my dad and a declaration to show that we didn't have any Covid symptoms, plus the usual passports and plane tickets. 

We travelled to Paris to visit our family and friends. I was born there and it had been my home for five years. My paternal grandparents live in an apartment on the fifth floor and her neighbours had lent us their apartment so we were on the same floor as them. The apartment measured 150 square meters with a wide entrance and mirrors everywhere. There was a mirror in every living space so that you could see your reflection no matter where you were standing. There were three rooms and two bathrooms, a living room that connected to an office, a kitchen and a dining hall. The apartment's layout was close to my grandparent's apartment and it was the same size but it had a modern touch to it. The rooms were functional not "pretty". The best part was that we were in the 16th district, two blocks away from the Eiffel Tower, so that on the French national day we could see the annual fireworks from the 7th floor. This last floor has many small studios about 15m² large with only one window.

The day after we arrived I met up with an old friend of mine and we rode on a "bateau mouche", an open excursion boat. We navigated on the Seine starting from the Eiffel Tower. We went by the Invalides, the Grand Palais, the Institut de France and Notre Dame, and under many famous bridges built by French kings and Napoleon. That boat ride made Paris look small as we felt like everything was close together. People were waving at us as we passed by and we even saw a couple dancing on the bay. The boat ride ended with the little girl behind us crying for no apparent reason and we headed back to my friends house.

An event my grandma had planned for, was an art exhibition at the "Musée d'Orsay", this museum used to be a train station and it houses the largest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world. It ranked 15th in the list of most visited art museum in the world with around 3 million visitors annually (excluding 2020). The exhibition we saw was called "The Origins of the World" and it depicted the influence of science on art. 

Parkie at the d'Orsay museum
Photo by Ibex73 

The first artwork of the exhibit is a big stuffed elephant by the name of Marguerite/Parkie. She was born in 1875 in Sri Lanka and died in 1817 in Paris. She and her counterpart Hans, were the first elephants at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes de  Paris.

Most of the exhibit was on plants, landscapes and animals, artists took many "exotic" species as models, such as rhinoceros, giraffes and flamingos that Europeans were discovering (1). There were also paintings of the "cabinet de curiosité" you could find in rich people's homes. These were bookshelves filled with shells and stuffed birds imported from overseas.There were also paintings from Renoir, Courbet and Moreau.

                                    
                                          Painted by Pietro Longhi 1751 (1) 
                                  This rhino was nicknamed Mrs Clara, when she toured Europe in the 1500's.



                            

                           An example of a curiosity cabinet
                                                   picture taken by Sophie Crépy

Another section showed our prehistoric ancestors, they looked like us but with different clothing. Nowadays these representations look ridiculous but at the time Europeans thought the world was only a few thousand years old. One of the most interesting paintings I saw was by Austrian painter, diplomat, explorer, lithographer and biologist, Eugen Von Ransonnet-Villez. The painting itself isn't spectacular, it is the way the painter sketched his model that is surprising...

To be continued...

(Special thanks to the Musee D'Orsay)