L'art pour l'art

What is art?

This pretentious question gets bandied around college courses as often as a ping pong ball during a game of beer pong. I tend to tune out whenever someone starts distinguishing between "high" and "low" art because it seems like such a pointless discernment, doomed from the beginning. However, I found myself asking that question when in Paris.


With one of the highest concentrations of art museums in the world, it's impossible to go to Paris without taking in a painting or 2,000. Art aficionados that we are, my mother and I went to a museum or two almost every day (except the day when we decided that getting lost in Saint Germain was an art form in itself.) The Centre Pompidou (pictured above), The Musée d'Orsay (pictured below), The Musée de l'Orangerie (which contains Monet's large water lilies and for once I agree with the terrible Inez character in "Midnight in Paris," they are overwhelming to see in person.), and The Rodin Museum (although Carla Bruni wasn't a tour guide, I'm sad to report.) Consequently, the only things I can stare at for any length of time this week are bad Paul Rudd comedies.As much as I appreciated seeing Toulouse-Lautrec's sketch marks at the d'Orsay and art I couldn't even understand at the Pompidou, by the end of the trip I was walking through museums like they were a check-list. Degas's dancers, check! Tourists crowding around Van Gogh, check! I even managed to miss some of the biggest checks like Manet's "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe"- the highlight of the entire d'Orsay for my mother. I was completely missing the point as well. The temperature regulated rooms were regulating how I viewed the experience of seeing art- long lines for tickets, the irony of shoving fellow spectators to see a painting of a tranquil pond, and spending more time reading descriptions than looking at paintings.

A sampling of the Pompidou.

[This actually isn't abstract art, it's a very definable object, I just shot it this way to confuse you. Can anyone guess what this sculpture is in full?]However, the best "art work" is probably the view.

From the Pompidou's balcony, you can start to see some of the city's alternative art. Say hello to the Cheshire Cat.

However, Paris's art scene didn't end with the closure of the brothels, although I'm sure Matisse was sad. It left the squalid studios full of oil paints, misery, and disease and entered the open air. With the sunlight came a slightly cheerier disposition, a sense of irreverence, a bit of cheek. The city's graffiti introduces the humor that is lacking in the museums.
[I love the irony of such an ostentatious mural being a "secret."][This man was found throughout town. I wonder what traffic law it depicts?]
[Translate to, "look at the sky", so I did when it wasn't raining.]

[The expression tromp l'oeil is French so I guess they know what they're doing.]
[Jack Russell Terriers and pigeons are the most evident animals running throughout Paris, but the graffiti artists are turning the boulevards into a jungle.]
[Oddly written in English, but still ominous.]

Parisian artists were harbingers of some of the great artistic movements, and although this legacy must be intimidating for contemporary Parisian artists, they made a movement of their own. There's no audio guide to it, but take a turn down a picturesque alley and you'll find it. Photography is definitely allowed!


Some of the shop signs could even hang in the Pompidou.
There's almost a full zoo running across the awnings of Paris.




Of course, some may argue that a Ladurée pastry is an art form, I'm one of those people. Although, attempting to eat this thing was a fiasco.
Paris is one of those amazing cities that has such an abundance of art that you start to take it for granted. However, the real shame would be to miss the art all around you.