Saturday, January 29, 2005

yoga and music in art

Notes from the cybercube at the Bastille.
Walking through the louvre a bobbed gamine is preparing a class of students for the impressionists, comparing the sketch with the real thing in an Ingres portrait:
"Parlons des fesses!"
"Qu'est ce qu'on a gagne?"
"On a gagne les FESSES!"
Only a french art teacher would be talking bottoms. And there are many to talk about in the Louvre, in particular some large horse bottoms purple from slapping...
But that is when we start getting overwhelmed and giggly. More seriously, we have purchased 3 day museum passes and are immersed in beauty.
A corner of a Bonnard painting captures my eye: A peasant in the background doing a perfect trikonasana- front leg anchored in the earth and torso freely untwisting up towards the sky, unravelling his spine of it's hard labour, and suddenly art and yoga meet in an Orsay moment.
Matisse's violinist, a head full of clouds, front leg anchored in the physical and back leg drifting in the world of the spirit, is pinned against a window frame looking out at the world like christ on the cross freed from religion and welcomed into art. This what it feels like to make music! How did he know? (Answer: he was a violinist)
The room of Bonnard at the Beaubourg has Julian's eyes brimming over with tears. What does he see in his thin and fragile self portrait? Just a man like him, with soap and a chest and a chin to shave? On the opposite wall a chair is not a chair but is a collection of multicoloured fabric, so how does it not float? I decide Bonnard has to have been the original Georgina von Etzdorf...
Braque manages a coffee cup, cigarette, ashtray and whatever other simple breakfast paraphenalia all in one miraculous swirl, like Manon and Oscar's markings. (Hello Manon and Oscar...are you eating your dinner?)
Meanwhile, in Cafe Flore, we see the chewed up and SO handsome face of Vincent Landon having his coffee and we are ridiculously excited.
Off to the Musee Picasso, hopefully via the perfect brasserie.

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