G,day you two.....
....thought I'd post a brief note as an antidote to the "tourists" of the "blissfully ignorant" entry.
There was the day Mrs Wombat and I visited the Musee D'Orsay... but the staff were on strike so we popped around the corner to Musee Rodin. (Paris' a bit like that we found.)
I'll talk about this extraordinary collection another time 'cause this is a story about children.... or more particularly a child, behaving, well... I think, brilliantly.
We had become accustomed to seeing excursion groups of children from Prep to Senior High at places we visited.
"......Let's take the students to Villandry/ LeThoronet/ Louvre/ Musee Rodin for the day..."? (sort of tops any excursion I ever took students on.)
They were invariably well-behaved as were the the late Primary-aged students there at Musee Rodin that day.
I was looking through the collection and taking some photos and when lining up a shot of "The Crouching Woman" noticed a little girl sitting with her mother on window seats diagonally opposite. The girl was drawing intently. In fact, very intently. I think she was about seven or eight years of age and as she was staring past me to my left I put the camera down so not to distract her.
I wondered... how long she would be able to maintain her concentration?
Minutes passed, probably four or five and she was still staring at that Rodin she was drawing, checking briefly what marks she was making and returning her gaze to the sculpture in such a concentrated manner when a man, French (well he spoke it fluently), approached the girl and asked to see her drawing. Her annoyed look made me grin but she showed him her work and looked glad that he was satisfied and was moving on and then returned to her drawing in her former decisive manner.
A few more minutes later the girls mother looked up and saw me watching and smiled... I went over to her and apologising for not speaking French asked if her little girl was always so conscientious?
"No, in fact it's the quietest I've ever seen her... she's always running around ...very active".
We conversed a little more, I thanked her and returned back behind the Crouching Woman, photographed them all and moved on, too.
She was still drawing......
I wonder what impact that place had made on that little girl and how she might remember it for the future?
This little episode was just the tonic needed after the "tourists".
In fact we returned to the D'Orsay... it was open ... but decided that looking/jostling at a Degas work with 200 others was probably something he never intended and went and actually found a good French coffee!
A satisfying day.
Cheers, petals.
Shane.
....thought I'd post a brief note as an antidote to the "tourists" of the "blissfully ignorant" entry.
There was the day Mrs Wombat and I visited the Musee D'Orsay... but the staff were on strike so we popped around the corner to Musee Rodin. (Paris' a bit like that we found.)
I'll talk about this extraordinary collection another time 'cause this is a story about children.... or more particularly a child, behaving, well... I think, brilliantly.
We had become accustomed to seeing excursion groups of children from Prep to Senior High at places we visited.
"......Let's take the students to Villandry/ LeThoronet/ Louvre/ Musee Rodin for the day..."? (sort of tops any excursion I ever took students on.)
They were invariably well-behaved as were the the late Primary-aged students there at Musee Rodin that day.
I was looking through the collection and taking some photos and when lining up a shot of "The Crouching Woman" noticed a little girl sitting with her mother on window seats diagonally opposite. The girl was drawing intently. In fact, very intently. I think she was about seven or eight years of age and as she was staring past me to my left I put the camera down so not to distract her.
I wondered... how long she would be able to maintain her concentration?
Minutes passed, probably four or five and she was still staring at that Rodin she was drawing, checking briefly what marks she was making and returning her gaze to the sculpture in such a concentrated manner when a man, French (well he spoke it fluently), approached the girl and asked to see her drawing. Her annoyed look made me grin but she showed him her work and looked glad that he was satisfied and was moving on and then returned to her drawing in her former decisive manner.
A few more minutes later the girls mother looked up and saw me watching and smiled... I went over to her and apologising for not speaking French asked if her little girl was always so conscientious?
"No, in fact it's the quietest I've ever seen her... she's always running around ...very active".
We conversed a little more, I thanked her and returned back behind the Crouching Woman, photographed them all and moved on, too.
She was still drawing......
I wonder what impact that place had made on that little girl and how she might remember it for the future?
This little episode was just the tonic needed after the "tourists".
In fact we returned to the D'Orsay... it was open ... but decided that looking/jostling at a Degas work with 200 others was probably something he never intended and went and actually found a good French coffee!
A satisfying day.
Cheers, petals.
Shane.
