The "other" Louvre

The “other” Louvre

The I.M. Pei redesign of the entrance to the Louvre is well known to anyone who has seen the Dan Brown novel turned movie, "The Da Vinci Code".  What they may not know is that the inverse point of the pyramid terminates in the central square of a high-end shopping mall, featuring retailers from Lalique crystal to a premiere Apple retail store. There's also a massive food court of ethnic cuisine including Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, American, Italian, French and more. 

The Louvre complex, it turns out, is also more than simply a fine arts museum, there’s a separate wing (and separate entrance fee) at the eastern end of the Tuileries Garden that’s dedicated mostly to fine furniture and other objects of art through the ages, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

While there was plenty of ornate and exceptionally beautiful work produced by craftsmen from the Middle ages to present day at the museum, it’s the Art Deco (1920’s or so) pieces and Mid-century modern (1950’s and ‘60’s) that I particularly enjoy. Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray (Charles’ wife) Eames, Eileen Gray, Harry Bertoia, Frances Knoll, are particular favorites. These are iconic designers that didn’t rely on decoration to make their pieces interesting. They redefined the entire structure of the piece to make a visually unique, yet practical piece of furniture. It’s also nice that so many of these pieces are still manufactured and commonly available today though they are in fact, museum quality art.

Mid-century furniture designers created a true inflection point in furniture design. A chair no longer had to have four legs or even legs at all. Construction materials now included metal and plastic in addition to wood, fabric and leather. Colors could come from any palette and could be used as a single piece counterpoint to more traditional furniture ensembles or used to reinforce the calming character of the clean and simple forms of a room composed of only modern furniture. They are equally relevant in historical buildings, reclaimed non-traditional living spaces such as commercial lofts, or almost any decorating motif except early American knotty pine or faux Tartan plaids.

While many feel that modern decorating is cold or harsh, for many of us it is precisely that lack of ornamentation that lets the piece reveal the elegance of the solution to its function in daily life. Though they often look insubstantial and uncomfortable, mid-century modern designs are typically some of the most comfortable and durable ever made.

Demonstrating precisely this point, there is a room in the museum set up with several of the displayed pieces where you are invited to sit and watch a number of movie clips where the pieces were key parts of the movie set. Eileen found just the right spot to rest her legs surrounded by an acrylic very personal and isolated environment… not too much different from a private nest suspended from the ceiling. I chose one of my favorites, the molded plywood and leather Eames chair and ottoman.

Not all the exhibits are about chairs. Ornate precision woodwork whether it’s fitted veneers or precision cut and sanded solids, make for rather spectacular cases, beds, tables and screens.

This intricate metal bed was impressive enough that it got it’s own room. But the  carved wooden lounge (for want of a better word) got it’s own room and period scenery to boot!

Fine examples of glass and metal vases and boxes (of every size) are featured as well.

Fabulous examples of ornate clocks are included in the collections. The stone clock is a Cartier design.

Since we were unfamiliar with the featured special exhibit artist (which also required yet another additional fee to see so we declined) our view was limited to the installation’s total remapping of the exhibit space with a perforated wall and dome ceiling… talk about a major installation!

You may have thought I’ve forgotten the Art Deco pieces. Au contraire! This carved wood music room cabinet and the inlaid curio cabinet just can’t be ignored.

The decorative chest and screen are simply magnificent. Even the entire period dining room reconstruction is indefinably impressive and memorable.

 

Or how about a blown glass and cast metal chandelier surpassed only by the all Murano blown cane glass masterpiece.

While there is little period jewelry to be seen, this engaging necklace has all the visual tricks of an Escher etching. It looks like it’s a highly three dimensional piece despite the fact that it essentially a string of nearly flat rectangles.

To finish the day I couldn't resist reducing this staircase into a series of monochrome geometric shapes creating a bit of Escher-like changes in depth perception myself.

Beaubourg Museum of Modern Art

Beaubourg Museum of Modern Art

While I’ll leave the serious and scholarly art history dissertations to my wife – she’s the one with the degree in art history – as I see it, European fine art had its basis in the Catholic Church, nation states and royalty via commissioning various works to their pleasure or political motivations. Art of the time was filled with symbolism and attempts at near-photographic imagery. Superb craft was developed over time to where it can be nearly impossible to distinguish the painted piece from a photograph from any reasonable distance.

As artists started painting for their own self expression – often driven to extremes just to continue that opportunity – artists drew us in with a new way of looking at that which could now be reproduced more accurately via a photograph; hence the Impressionists. They wanted us to see and feel what they saw and felt. They wanted us to see the world in a less mundane way than a highly accurate translation of a scene now made possible via photography.

The colorful space below is designed to help you see exactly how color perception changes when color patterns are viewed through colored lenses. The filter panels are on tracks so that you can move and combine them for different effects.

 Many of today’s artists seem to want to make art more interactive, to do more than simply make us think. They want us to bring a new dimension, a unique personal experience in such a way that we become an ephemeral component of the work, an experience that has been set up by the artist, but whose final impact is both very personal while potentially bringing new insights, even to the artist. This is not the art of the Cubists, the Dadaists, et al, who expected us to dig deeper to decipher what they were saying. They wanted us to invest in experiencing their work. This is art that invites you to simply experience it on a personal level often free of any expected outcome other than perhaps delight or any other range of emotion.

Which is why the “Beaubourg” or the Centre Georges Pompidou museum is such a refreshing place. It is at the same time a stark, utilitarian structure that infuses a deep sense of minimalist architectural design yet it often supports pure, unbridled whimsy. Initially the Beaubourg was not well received. National Geographic described it as “love at second sight,” other’s described it as Paris’ own Lock Ness monster.

(Yes, the girls are looking at empty frames arranged as family photos might be in a suburban home.)

If you want to see the old masters, including La Giaconda (Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa) go to the Louvre. For Impressionists and other fine art, the D’Orsay moves you into the early 1900’s. But it is the Pompidou (designed by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Glanfranco Franchini in 1971 and completed 1977) that will bring you from the 1960’s to today. Whether it's the Stravinsky Fountain (Fontaine des Automates) -- a reflecting pool opposite centuries old architecture -- populated with brightly painted whimsical, moving, water-spraying, imaginary creatures, representing Stravinsky musical themes, or a perforated steel installation in the main galleries that’s part cave, part labyrinth, or simply a visual delight, the art engages you, invites you to be a part of it.

That’s not to say you won’t find significant works by Picasso, Mondrian, Chagall or others. There’s simply an opportunity to find art that does more than make you say, that’s interesting.

The Beaubourg is actually a multi-functional cultural center. It houses an extensive library, exhibition space, the largest modern art collection in Europe, observation decks, “gardens” and restaurants.

The escalator ride up to floor four (the permanent exhibition space) is via a clear tube structure external to the building itself. You feel a bit like a hamster in a clear polycarbonate tube maze. But the view of the museum’s plaza and all of its activity is it’s own reward as you ascend the structure.

In addition to the exhibition space there is an open-air restaurant on level six as well as a wonderful observation deck / reflecting pool terrace. The views of downtown Paris are simply absorbing. It’s also a nice respite from the art, a bit like cleansing your palette between courses of a fine meal with a citrus sorbet.

But either before entering the museum, or before leaving for the day, take time to absorb another function of the facility, the plaza (Place Georges Pompidou). You’ll find families having picnics, probably didgeridoo players looking for tips as they play along with pre-recorded music tracks, street vendors hawking kitschy Eiffel Tower key rings and table-top mementos, jugglers, mimes, artists, or just about anyone else exhibiting their prowess at some arcane craft or athletic endeavor.

Set off to one end of the plaza in its own building is the Atelier Brancusi sculpture museum that is an interpreted replica of the artist’s exhibition studio and work rooms… behind glass. Brancusi, as did Rodin, left his entire estate and personal collections to the French State.

The facility was designed as the artist bequeathed before his death by Renzo Piano to not so much duplicate Brancusi’s actual studio, but to create an accessible space that preserved his sense of negative space and light; so much so that the lighting itself was designed to duplicate the natural light of Brancusi’s actual studio. The light and negative space was especially important because much of what the artist intended was a function of the materials used, the space around it and the light surrounding it.

Finally, across the plaza, a pistache (pistachio) gelato goes a long way to delight yet another sense to complete the day.