JACK-PARIS- Start of visit of Modern Art Museum centre Pompidou
Jack
Loire, Belgium, Amsterdam, Venice and Normandy posts are visible with
pictures on http://www.jack-travel.com/
PARIS 3RD ARR/ Modern Art Museum centre Pompidou-Copyright ©
Let’s give first some precisions: this Centre is a cultural adventure,
not only a museum like too many people still believe. Open every day
except Tuesday from 11.00–22.00. The library open only at 12.00 but
also until 22.00. Phone number is 0144781233.
Unfortunately you have to pay today to get on the escalator leading to
the upper parts.
Let’s start with the most important: the Musée National d’Art Moderne.
It’s an extraordinary museum, with superb collections of modern and
contemporary art. I assure you, even if you don’t like modern art,
even if you even hate it, and a lot do, it is worth to come and look.
I’m sure it will trigger something inside you, which you didn’t even
suspect. Anyway, hundreds of master pieces (see pictures on my site).
Everything is disposed and places in an intelligent, airy and
chronological way.
This collection started a long time ago, heir of the musée du
Luxembourg (1818-1940) dedicated to living artists, heir of the musée
du Jeu de Paume, dedicated to foreign Schools (1932-1945), the Musée
national d’Art moderne du Palais de Tokyo (1947-1976). The museum in
the Centre is now the final depositor of the modern and contemporary
art collections inherited, bought or donated.
Like said before, it's one of the main collections in the world (more
than 40,000 works) not only painting bit also sculpture, drawings,
video installation, artistic films, architecture, design and
industrial creation.
The spaces are of course not large enough to present even a small
fraction, even after the renovation works. That’s why the collections
‘turn” periodically. 900 works present the history of art of the first
half of the 20th century. Fauvism, trying to express everything in
exalting colours, applied in a savage way, brutal without any plastic
concern, sometimes right out of the colour tube. The name “fauve”
meaning “wild beast, animal” is said to be invented by a critic who
saw the works at the salon d’automne in 1905 and cried out loud “Ce
sont des fauves!!”. The name stayed.
The itinerary ends with abstract American expressionism and different
movements of the 50’s (Yves Klein, Soulages, Hantai) and an important
Matisse section, the museum reveals all its treasures: cubist
sculptures, grand masters of the century (more Matisse, Picasso,
Braque, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Dealunay Leger, Miro, Ernst, Giacometti,
Dubuffet..), a diversity of groups and movements (Dada, Bauhaus,
abstraction, informal art…), terraces with monumental sculptures and
rooms with cut out cardboards from Matisse. All this reveals sometimes
very agreeable surprises.(see pictures on my site
http://www.jack-travel.com/ )
I will not stand still at Duchamp’s works, I’m really not a fanatic
and his art doesn’t speak to me.
But Fernand Leger is something else. His cubist works are like a
reaction to the naturalism and positivism of the 19th century and he
describes objects in a totally different way, taking into
consideration that the machines are taking over humanity.
Just a few words about Kandinsky. He was the instigator and first to
have set up an “abstract” painting. Delaunay was a faithful follower.
Paul Klee, the Swiss and Piet Mondriaan, the Dutchman step in, each
in his own style. Mondriaan with its geometric rigour and precision,
Kandinsky with its poetic, magic and joyful world, Klee with its
abstract lyrical works, a popular realism.( see pictures of Leger,
Kandinsly and Mondriaan on my web site)
And what about our Belgian celebrities Magritte and Delvaux, Yves
Tanguy, Salvador Dali.
The pop-art of the 50’s, reflecting a new consumers society.
Floor 4 houses the art mid to end 20th century. That's for next essay.
Bibliography:
--Vie et histoire des arrondissements de Paris, ed.Hervas
(1985-1988--Nouvelle Histoire de Paris, ed.Hachette--Le Pieton de
Paris, by L.P.Fargue, ed.Gallimard -Paris, 2000 d'histoire, by
J.Favier, ed.Fayard 199--Paris 19eme siecle, l'immeuble et la rue, by
F.Loyer, ed.Hazan, 1994-Historique des rues de Paris, ‘Soc.Contact
Communication, Paris), Beaubourg, l’esprit du lieu, by Philippe
Bidaine (Ed.Scala , Paris)
Jack
My Paris,daytrips from Paris, Provence, Cote d'Azur, valley of the
Loire,Normandy, Belgium, Amsterdam and Venice essays are on
http://www.jack-travel.com WITH pictures
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