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| Alain with new Epice scarf (Danish designer copied graffiti from a Barcelona wall-- wonderful colours)
We walked over to the Musee du Luxembourg at about noon. En route we passed a photo exhibit on the gates of the Jardin du Luxembourg. This year it was entitled: Les Routes du Miel, (The Honey Routes) and featured pictures of bees and honey-making from around the world including Paris, Brazil, China, and the United States.
Poster for The Honey Route
The Musee Luxembourg is across from the Senate building. There was a poster with celebrated French senators over the years including Victor Hugo, Georges Clemenceau and others who had fought in the Resistance. We just have Duffy, et al.
We went to see the exhibit at the Musee du Luxembourg: Fragonard Amoureux: Galant et Libertine (Fragonard in Love: Suitor and Libertine). Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) was born in Grasse and is one of the most emblematic painters in the decades preceding the French Revolution. The exhibit focused on the theme of love and romance, tracing his works chronologically and thematically from visions of gallant love, through libertinism and eroticism to a more "romantic" version of love. Early pictures depicted idyllic pastoral scenes with shepherds and paintings based on Greek and Roman myths. A number of his paintings were purchased by Louis XV.
Fragonard later moved to illustrate a number of libertine books published in the 18th century. He became close friends with Pierre-Antoine Baudouin (1723-1769), whose works were also featured in the exhibit. They shared a studio at one point. These works were almost pornographic in nature. Between 1760-1770, "Frago", as Fragonard was called, became the leader of libertine painting. After 1780, conjugal love was again stressed and Frago moved on to more romantic paintings. Photos were only allowed of some pictures. It was a very extensive show. The exhibit fit well with our visit to the Fragonard Musee du Perfum and also the exhibit we had seen on the portrayal of prostitutes at the Musee D'Orsay.    After the exhibit we went to Le Labo to get some perfume. We had really liked Sandal 33, which we had tried in a clothing store a few days earlier. A woman at the shop makes up a tiny vial (all I can afford), which you don't use for a few days. Le Labo is located on a tiny street off Rue de Seine in the 6th.    We then shared a sandwich (chicken on a baguette) and stopped for an icecream/sorbetto at Grom, our favourite Italian gelato/sorbetto place.  We then wandered over to Le Bon Marche, the oldest department store in Paris (founded in1852), which also has a huge food store- La Grande Epicerie de Paris. The store was buzzing on a beautiful Saturday. They were doing a special promotion- Brooklyn Rive Gauche (from Sept 3-October 17), selling lots of provisions, clothes, and books from Brooklyn, New York. We recognized a number of the brands-- all very expensive translated into euros.  We were getting tired so we walked down Rue Babylone to Coutume Cafe for a coffee. Our server was from Montreal. We stayed there until about 7:00 p.m. and then headed over to the Monnaie de Paris (old Paris Mint) where there was a Nuit Blanche Event. We walked by a wonderful poster advertising a concert at the Olympia by Daniel Bechet, Sidney Bechet's son commemorating a mythical concert from 60 years ago. I am a big fan of Sidney Bechet--- too bad the concert isn't until later this month.  A number of exhibits for Nuit Blanche this year were linked to the upcoming COP 21 Conference of the Parties on Climate Change taking place in Paris later this year. There is a booklet of all the exhibits and events and a map. This year there was a focus on northeast Paris, but another area was around City Hall and environs. We had thought that we would be able to see the current exhibit at la Monnaie de Paris entitled Take Me (I'm Yours), featuring a number of contemporary artists. Instead there was one large room with piles of used clothes, a few installations. Everyone got a brown bag with Christian Boltanski's name on it--and the opportunity to take a number of posters or old clothes away.  There was also a hanging tree with tags that one could write messages on. 
Alain under message tree
We then walked over to L'Hotel de Ville (City Hall) which housed a major installation. The installation called Ice Monument was by Zhenchen Liu (b. Shanghai 1976). The exhibit consisted of 270 blocks of ice in different colours representing the countries participating in the upcoming COP 21. The melting ice showed the fragility of our climate. Lots of people were congregating at the exhibit.
 
Ice Monument at L'Hotel de Ville
We checked out a few more exhibits and then decided it was time for dinner. We had passed a few interesting restaurants on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine in the 5th near the Seine. We were checking one out, as a French couple were leaving. We asked how the restaurant was, and they told us it was one of their favourites, that they eat there a few times a month and recommend it to out of town guests. That was a great review, so we went in and were able to get a table as it was about 9:30 p.m. The prix fixe was for three courses and it was excellent. The chef at Bistro des Gastronomes is Cedric Lefevre and the food was all based on fresh produce- contemporary takes on traditional food.
I started with wonderful razor clams and Alain had a dish with celery/halibut.
 
Celery/Halibut
For the main course, Alain had cod in a cream sauce and I had a wonderful pork shoulder and vegetable dish. Both were very good.
 
My pork shoulder with mushrooms/carrots/celery- lovely thyme flavour
Alain had an amazing chocolate and cherry desert and I had a lemon tart (in a glass).
  
Outside of Bistro des Gastronomes
We had only a 20 minute walk to our apartment. It was still quite warm out-- another beautiful day in Paris.
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Sunday, 4 October 2015
Fragonard Exhibit and Nuit Blanche
Saturday October 3 started a bit cloudy, but by noon the sun was out and it got warm (about 21C high). Alain wore his new scarf, but as it warmed up he had to take it off.
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Quite the day. Boy, you two know how to live the good life. The Bistro des Gastronomes looks wonderful, it will go into our places to visit when next in Paris. The museum exhibitions looked really intriguing from smooth honey, to fiery libertine posters to cool ice. Seeing the Bechet concert would have been a real treat but it looked like you ended your day with some pretty amazing treats anyway.
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