My Favorite Artworks in La maison de Balzac, Paris

Honoré de Balzac was the first French author I encountered via his immortal Le Père Goriot, when I was still in elementary school, therefore I had a great affection for this great novelist and societal historian.

In 2008, when I returned to Paris, I made my way to his former residence, La maison de Balzac, in the western edge of the city, near Musée Marmottan Monet and Jardins du Ranelag in its vicinity. Balzac rented the top floor of that rather modest house, from 1840-1847 under his housekeeper's name (Mr. de Breugnol), evading his creditors from the city.

I loved Balzac's keen and cutting observation of the colorful characters populated the brutal society in Paris and provinces, and was delighted to see a roomful print blocks of main characters from his enormous, though unfortunately unfinished, La Comédie humaine.  Amongst those characters, my favorite had always been Eugène de Rastignac, a charming and innocent lad from province to a roguish and cynic though not without redeeming qualities, featured in several of his novels in this series.


Print blocks of characters from La Comédie humaine by Honoré Balzac

In the block below, Rastignac, after having buried the self-sacrificing Père Goriot, swore to fight with the corrupted city and its high society, before he jumped into the battle headlong, by joining his mistress, the younger daughter of Père Goriot, Delphine, Baroness de Nucingen.  It was the moment of truth and resolution, a moment of leaping from innocence to corruption.  The image was an utterly bleak and most biting assessment of the glittering Paris and its dazzling society.


Eugène de Rastignac dans le cimetière du Père-Lachaise dans Le Père Goriot

My second favorite artwork there was a definitive study of a head sculpture of the novelist by Auguste Rodin, made around 1897 - Étude définitive pour la tête de Balzac.  Behind exuberant air of the novelist, Rodin captured his sharp gaze and presented him as simultaneously sagely and clownish, embodying the broad spectrum of his oeuvre and his epoch. 


Étude définitive pour la tête de Balzac, vers 1897, Auguste Rondin

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My Favorite Sculptures in les Jardins du Ranelag, Paris

On my way to Musée Marmottan Monet in the 16th arrondissement of western Paris, I encountered a lovely park, Les Jardins du Ranelagh, nearby, which obviously provided much pleasure to the residents nearby, and also boasted many amazing sculptures.

Of those, I found these two below most interesting.  The first one was a bronze, Hommage à Jean de La Fontaine (1983) by Charles Corréia (1945-1988).  The sculpture featured one of the most famous fables by Jean de La Fontaine, Le Corbeau et le Renard (The Fox and the Crow), depicting the cunning fox cheating the cheese out of the crow's mouth by flattery, observed by the poet.







The second of my favorite sculpture there was a marble, Pêcheur ramenant la tête d’Orphée dans ses filets (Fisherman bringing the head of Orpheus in his nets), the sad ending of the immortal Orpheus myth. The sculpture was dynamic, lively, powerful, elegant and melancholic.  Unforgettable.

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Rainy Days in San Francisco Bay Area

Recently, San Francisco Bay Area had several stormy days which though could not really alleviate  the severe drought in California, it did bring some wonderful sights, therefore, however inconvenienced, I was very grateful to those rainy days:






















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New Moon

I was late in blogging about the First Full Moon in "Year of Horse", and I am also late in blogging the amazing sight of a new moon.  Though late, it is still better than omission.  Finally, here are those pictures I took a few days earlier:













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My Favorite Sculptures in Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris

Cemeteries in Paris are often amazing places to visit - not only it consists a pilgrimage to the resting spots of so many renown artists and thinkers, but a brief immersion of an sculptural Eden. 

Cimetière de Montmartre, not far from the fabled club Moulin Rouge, though less renown and less frequently visited than Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, was just as astonishing in its cultural and artistic richness. There were so many beautiful spots there I saw in my visit there more than five years ago, and much more I didn't have time and energy to see them all. Amongst what enchanted me during that brief visit, I choose these two below as my favorite sculptures I encountered there:

One was a bronze sculpture at the tomb of Otto Klaus Preis (1936-2003) in Avenue de la Croix, one of the most beautiful ancient quarries of Montmartre, featuring a man who overcomes a tombstone, created by Paul Landowsky (1875-1961), author of the Sainte-Genevieve du Pont de la Tournelle in Paris, and Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. The striding naked man was in full swing, aided by a sturdy stick, resolutely to overcome whatever was ahead of him.  It was full of vitality, and upon close examination, delicate beauty.  Quite a mixture yet harmoniously done.  This spot gave visitors reassurance more than anything else.



My second favorite was the sculpture of Jean Bauchet (1906-1995), former director and performer (acrobat and singer) of Moulin Rouge, then owner of the club, Director of Casino de Paris and the Théâtre du Chatelet, creator of casinos in Lebanon and Morocco. Long before his death, he had this imposing Male Nude Bronze by Bernard Richard installed on his his grave spot.

Though I didn't care for all those fancy hats he wore, the sculpture itself impressed me deeply.  Everything about the sitter was monumental - huge bulk of body, huge head, strong limps, large hands and feet, in a pose reminiscent of Rodin's the Thinker, and that implied a huge personality and thinking mind.  If Monsieur Bauchet didn't become a most exalted artist during his life time, in his afterlife, his lookalike became a piece of true art.

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