On Tuesday, I met up with Emilie again and we went to the Musée du président Jacques Chirac, the legacy of the former President. It was quite large and crowded, with a lot of interesting and novel art. The museum focuses on non-Western art and is arranged by continent: Oceania, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Emilie brought her camera and got some good photos. You can check them out on Facebook; I think I’m tagged in a few and maybe you can see her album from there. We had hot chocolate and a waffle at a café nearby before I met up with Jen, Michael, Heimunn, Mackenzie, Farah, and to catch up on our weekends spent in Amsterdam, Morocco, and London/Edinburgh, respectively.
Dinner was a yummy salmon and spinach quiche, but I had eaten a suspicious tuna sandwich for lunch and I felt quite nauseous. I went to bed and had trouble sleeping and woke up the next day with nausea and a headache (as I wrote in the previous posting). The presentation at Musée d’Orsay went all right. I presented La Blanchisseuse by Honoré Daumier, a painting that piqued my interest because of its pleasing composition and use of light. There turned out to be an interesting story behind it and I came upon some intriguing interpretations. Unfortunately I felt very ill and very tired the whole time.
After Musée d’Orsay, Jen and I headed over to Ashley’s house in Montmartre to do our Practicum Project. The idea was to recreate some of Ingres’ tableaux, in which the body proportions are physically impossible, with real people who, inevitably, have real proportions. I posed as La Grande Odalisque and Jen posed as La dormeuse de Naples. We had fabric and some props from BHV, copies of the paintings, and Peter’s nice digital camera. Farah was behind the lens and Ashley and I acted as set assistants for Jen’s photo, which we composed first. I’ll just say it was freaking hard to get everything right! The body of La dormeuse is impossibly round, her arms are impossibly positioned, and La dormeuse looks impossibly relaxed. Nonetheless, Jen did an amazing job of posing, Farah flexed her photographic muscles, and Ashley and I held up the red sheet in the background with all of our might.
Next was La Grande Odalisque. The body positioning of this one was relatively easier, although still quite uncomfortable. For the record, I didn’t feel that awkward being unclothed since it was a very artistic and professional production overall. The pictures turned out pretty true to the painting, except with a normally sized back, not the absurdly long back of the woman painted in the original. I’ve included the Odalisque below; I couldn't find Jen's. You can imagine the rest.
The presentation of our project went well. It was a little nerve-wracking to stand in front of the class with a gigantic photo of me in the nude on the projector, but really it wasn’t so bad. I thought all of the photos were extremely tasteful since we had put so much genuine artistic effort into them. A little shock value never hurts, either.
After the presentation, Stanford had arranged a visit to L’Assemblée Nationale. After going through much security and passport viewing, we were finally allowed into the hall to observe the going-ons of the National Assembly, in action. They were discussing a bill to provide government-subsidized housing and the back-and-forth discussion was quite amusing. One side would interrupt the other with peanut gallery-esque remarks, laughter would ensue, more commentary, and then defensive reply. There were even butlers in coat tails who brought beverages and papers to the representatives on demand. The hall was extremely stately and impressive with beautiful marble pillars and gilded carvings. “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” was written on each side of the center wall, with “La République Française” taking center stage. I was impressed and felt moved by the legacy of French politics.
The visit would have been much more enjoyable if the woman in charge of keeping the peace in our section wasn’t such a bitch. I don’t use this term lightly. For example, when Kai stood up (very conscientiously, mind you) too see if there was an open seat below, this woman snapped at her and told her if she wanted to see, she should have sat more toward the front. Which is what Kai was trying to do, but that’s besides the point…Not. Then, when Roberto leaned over to whisper to someone, the evil woman rushed over to reprimand him and consequently created much more noise than there was in the first place. I blew a bubble with my gum unconsciously and the evil woman, where a simple “Please don’t do that,” would suffice, proceeded to fly into a rage, saying it was disgusting, and asking would I do that in class? CRAZY. When there was a short intermission after the housing bill was passed, she went into a tirade saying we were the most inappropriate group she had ever seen and went on to single me out, remarking that “Never in my life have I seen someone blow a bubble here.” Likely story. Anyway, I stormed out with as much spunk as I could muster and I hope she got the message that it was actually SHE who was the most impolite person there. She reprimanded us as though we were two year old who were out of control. She’s on a power trip, if I’ve ever seen one.
Ah. So now I am back home and have ambitious intentions to start some homework. I have another presentation tomorrow for my Health Systems class, and plenty of things due next Tuesday. I still haven’t fully recovered from my illness, but I’m hoping some more rest will have me ready and raring to go this weekend in Paris.
time to come home now. come now. need you now.
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