Bad Grace

G'day Possums,

Shane with doll... of sorts

Well, that's been a week to end all weeks....
it seems bad grace, ignorance, lack of regard and plain bad manners are the contemporary social currency.
But Hey-Ho... it's in another direction we go.






One of the least expected but pleasant re-awakenings of the recent trip was to re-discover sculpture again. From walking out of Port Royal and heading to our accommodation and recognising Francois Rude's "Marechal Ney" exhorting his troops, to the delightfully acid caricatures of Honore Daumier (illustrating a couple of posts back) in the Musee d'Orsay as well as the manic vibrancy of Carpeaux's "The Dance" which graces the facade of the Opera Garnier.

Carpeaux, The Dance, M. d'Orsay

Getting up close to this piece in its plaster form at the d'Orsay was quite revelatory of Carpeaux's brilliance of his deft handling and compositional ability.

It showed too, his primary influence on Rodin who we came across in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

Rodin, Cesar Franck, Montparnasse

It was a portrait of the composer Cesar Frank and like the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Montparnasse has a wealth of sculpture to study and "finds" to discover.

Carpeaux, Observatory Fountain

Just across the road from our apartment was the Luxembourg Gardens where Carpeaux's "Observatory Fountain, The Four Quarters of the Globe" had its energetic horses wildly splashing  about....

Bourdelle's "Pomona"

....and when Visiting the Art Gallery in Rouen I finally understood Bourdelle's "Pomona" in its sinuous sensuousness.

But the real hit was visiting the Marmottan and there purchasing a reproduction of one of Degas' dancers.

Resin cast from the original wax you can feel where Degas' hands and fingers worked the material.. almost a lesson in itself.....

Degas, Spanish Dancer

...all of which means there will be sculpture being made.

And finally some pics of Erin S that were asked for..

Wombat Droppings 

or the demise of Egalitarianism and the rise of fascism in Australia.

Malcolm Farr got it right on "Insiders"calling the costumes of Oz's new "Border Farce" as like something that came from a provincial amateur Light-Opera wardrobe... and I was interested in the re-run of "Roaming Quisling" chief scout of the new Borders Protection Farce in just how much his speech delivery is so similar to the fascist nationalist buffoons wanting to "fight-party" on July 18 ... same mentality?

Prime Miniature, Rabid-the-Hun, sounding increasingly shrill, has switched what mind still functions to permitting his rabble to attend ABC interview programs again. That no-one really cares any more for his asinine attempts to control or destroy everything in his path he just makes it all the more difficuilt to take any of this ruling rabble seriously. And when it comes to interview, particularly on the ABC, one gets the feeling that now, with little to lose, no quarter will be given.  

Leigh "Hissy-Fit" Sales, one of the worst, most consistently "right" biased interviewers on ABC managed to make another mess of another interview. This time Labor's Brendan O Connor who, unfazed by her constant interruptions and obvious seething that he wouldn't answer in the manner she wanted, blithely said, "Leigh, I don't think you can see the woods for the trees!" 

Leigh was not a happy troll!

Similarly, it seems Justice Heydon wanted Bill Shortstuff  to answer questions in a particular way at the latest $80,000,000.00 ShowTrial Circus. Refusing to do so, Shortstuff was deemed an "unreliable witness" in what was not meant to be a pre-emtive verdict before this show trial circus is finished. Latching onto this as solid proof that Shortsuff is in fact "not-quite-nice" Liarbril non-entity Bruce "Blah-Blah" Bilson frothed at the mouth a lot, completely forgetting that his attendance at a number of fund-raisers hosted by alleged Mafia figures is somewhat more important and really needs his clarification.... or at least how many brown paper bags changed hands.

As my part in his eventual downfall I have made this little Rabid-the-Hun doll that you can stick pins in. I guarantee that it will make him as sick as someone sitting near a Wind Turbine

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane

being seen, being seen.

Shane at Versailles

G'day Petals,

It seems a long time between drinks but that's only because we've been flat-out like the proverbial Lizard and buzzing around Paris like blue-arsed Flies.

Versaille, The Marmottan, Dorsay,  Louvre/Arts Decoratif,  Magnum show at Hotel de Ville, Concergerie, St Chapelle,  Orangerie, a belt up the Tour Montparnasse for some panoramas across the city at dusk with the added spice of a day of death at Montparnasse cemetery followed by the completely "over-the-top" brilliance of Opera Garnier...  and all after Cluny, Ateliers' Zadkine and Delacroix and the Jardin de Plantes in the Luxembourg Gardens.  All possible only by the brilliance of the Paris metro and rail system....... and when you hear Rabid-the-Hun is spitefully holding back monies for the extension of Melbourne's underground you really have to consider that the ruling rabble's leader is not competent....in any capacity!
Some of the Paris transport has good entertainment, too....

These fellows were hopping between trains busking and making a fine noise....

...as were these classical types..







...and these two were bopping along in Bv St. Michel this afternoon.. which sort of ties with this posts theme of  being seen.... being seen.



So many of the "Big Venues", D' Orsay, Versailles, Opera etc  are very crowded.... not just with the most wonderful art, architecture, history and collections of talent but also with people; people who are there to tell every one else that they are there and will have a "selfie" to prove it. One for every minute, in front of every art work, pillar, sculpture, tapestry, vase, ring, building, landscape, tree, blade of grass that is there to justify their existence.

Opera Garnier selfies

It strikes me that so much time is spent preening for the position, look, pose and pout that there mustn't be a lot of brain left over for the "thing"they are using as a vanity prop.

Versailles selfie

The picture above has around 60 people crowded into this not overly large room in Versailles.. I counted about 12 looking at something and not through a camera... but perhaps the best was seen at the Orangerie where three young women whose quality of dress, attitude and looks could only be described as indifferent, took turns in pressing Monet's Water Lilies into service as wallpaper for their ego boosting face-book updates.

Orangerie

The democratisation of access to media and ability to proliferate it has meant that all the visual and conceptual lessons learned from advertising have been put into play. 

There was, when old advertising appropriated "art" as a status vehicle on which to drive its product, a diminution of the apparent value of the art happened through over-use but now the massive amount of media we are subjected to with its hyperbole necessarily ramped up to maintain a presence has completely obliterated the core value of the object and replaced that with a concept of its "thingness."

St Chapelle

It seems that the "selfie," in the art gallery context and quite apart from its extreme narcissism, has developed from a genuflection to art as a thing of wonder to a genuflection to a self who admits no possibility of creating anything except an ongoing self referential dialogue. The identification with self is so strong that that it precludes anything (or one) equivalent or better because that would destroy the primacy of self.  

It's a scary thought that society, for a narcissistic selfie-producer begins and ends with them and that collective action on anything is not possible without a loss of self.

The Fascists dream.... but oddly enough, not much in the way of selfies being taken in the Concergerie.... a trifle too macabre I dare say.

The Concergerie

Then there were other people on the street and here they are....

Effigy

"Effigy" a 3D portrait outfit by Vincent Haeffner and his assistant Max working in St Germain..... a  really interesting concept... check them out on face-book.

Effigy

Gilbert

A rather poignant portrait for Gilbert taken outside his late parents home...

Petit Trianon

Petit Trianon

Petit Trianon

and fountain this makes great playof light...

Carpeaux

a room with a view.... but Rouen calls...

Hoo-roo Possums.,

Shane