Opera Garnier learnings


I have been a fan of the Opera Garnier since I stumbled upon it early into my month in Paris in 2009. I was already blown away by the building when I looked up and first set eyes on Chagall's remarkable ceiling. I gushed at the time, and have since acquired a tremendous print of the ceiling (yet to be framed) and a book or two.

Yet, despite learning that construction began in the 1860's, I never really thought about how that Chagall got there.

Then, this morning, reading an old copy of a Sunday NY Times left over from a vacation (I buy a copy and read it front to back over a week, and unfinished sections set aside... one of which just surfaced), I had a major ah ha moment:

"Among the theater's most famous fixtures are the chandelier and the painted ceiling that surrounds it ~ originally by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, then replaced in 1964 with a new sprawling work by Marc Chagall depicting scenes from operas by Mozart, Wagner and more."
Behind the Curtain at the Paris Opera, New York Times, September 8, 2019

Of course!!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

100 Years of Bauhaus

Image
In honour of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus school, some interesting resources... For the better part of a century, Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus Dessau has been a mecca for a certain flavor of design lover. People from around the world travel to the modernist building in Weimar, Germany, to pay homage to the school that launched countless design careers. Now, a smaller version of the Dessau is hitting the road in celebration of the Bauhaus’s 100th anniversary this year. A 161-square-foot building-on-wheels designed to look like the iconic workshop wing of the Gropius building - glass facade and sans-serif signage included - will travel to Berlin, Kinshasa, in the Democratic of Congo, and Hong Kong, playing host to workshops and exhibitions that aim to update the Bauhaus’s European-centric teachings for a more global modern age. ... [read more on Curbed] . When architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in 1919, his utopian manifesto proclaimed that minimalism and a
Read more

Where is Van Gogh's Dr. Gachet?

Image
Portrait of Dr. Gachet is one of the most revered paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It depicts Dr. Paul Gachet who took care of Van Gogh during the final months of his life, and was painted in June 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise. There are, or were, two versions of the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, as well as a single etching. The whereabouts of the original Portrait of Dr. Gachet are unknown, and is one of today's biggest art mysteries. Portrait of Dr. Gachet - the original Whereabouts unknown First sold in 1897 by Van Gogh's sister-in-law for 300 francs, the original Portrait of Dr. Gachet was subsequently bought by Paul Cassirer (1904), Kessler (1904), and Druet (1910). In 1911, the painting was acquired by the Städel (Städtische Galerie) in Frankfurt, Germany and hung there until 1933, when the painting was put in a hidden room. It was confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 as part of its campaign to rid Germany of so-called degenerate art. Instead of destroying
Read more

Cat Loving Artists

Image
Pablo Picasso and his cat, taken by painter Carlos Nadal at Vallauris 1954. The previously unknown photo was donated by his son Alejandro Nadal to the Museu Picasso Barcelona in 2010. What do Emily Barto, Pablo Picasso, Louis Wain and Andy Warhol all have in common? They all loved their cats. If you love art, artists and cats too, you'll likely enjoy these features about well known artists and their cats. Mary Savig, the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art's curator of manuscripts, recently dug through the institution's collection and published Artful Cats, a collection of artists with their cats. Highlights and endearing examples were featured by Artsy in These Smithsonian Archival Photos Show Famous Artists with Their Cats . I was particularly taken with the photographs of Hedda Sterne (outside and gazing skyward with Poussin), Frank Stella in his studio (reclining with Marisol), Beatrice Wood at her pottery wheel observed by one of her Manx cats (so that
Read more