The Victorian Era: Top hats and crinolines. A History of Fashion, 1840-1880. With Dimitri Papalexis
???? Tu. 23 Nov. 10:30 am – 12 noon: Musée d’Orsay. Meet by group entrance B at 10:15. Bring ? for ticket.
The whalebone corsets and crinolines of the mid-Victorian era (1848-1880), the influence of Empress Eugénie and the great couturier Charles Frederick Worth are the subject of this visit to the Musée d’Orsay which was cancelled in October during the strikes. The fashions of the era will be examined in paintings by Degas, Bazille, Renoir, Tissot and Winterhalter.
Course fee: 20 € for one session.
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Paris under the Bourbons: Sunset: The End of Louis XIV and the French Regency, 1690-1723.
The death of Colbert (1683) Charles Le Brun (1690) and the departure from court of Athenais de Montespan (1691) usher in the last part of the long reign (72 years) of Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon , hired at first to be governess to
Athenais’ children will gradually replace her mistress in the King’s heart. Under her spell the aging King will lead a more regular and devout life. In architecture the principal projects of the end of the reign are the great new royal squares built in Paris, the places de Victoires and Vendôme
. We will be also examining the construction of the new gates and great boulevards ringing the capital and the return of the baroque style in art in the flamboyant work of Largillière,
Rigaud, Desportes and Jouvenet. Between 1710 and 1715 all of Louis’ legitimate children and grandchildren die in a relentless and tragic sequence of a variety of illnesses.
The Sun King himself dies aged 77 in 1715. His only surviving descendant is his youngest great grandchild, the orphan
Louis XV
, who will become King at the age of 5. The little King’s uncle the duke of Orléans , son of Louis XIV’s brother Philippe, takes over the government of the Kingdom as Regent. The
Régence
spells the true opening to the 18 th century in France. The tolerant even dissolute lifestyle of the Regent, the new possibilities for quick enrichment offered by the stock market, mark this period as one devoted to the fast life, luxury and pleasure. Watteau is the first artist to break with the Grand Style to create an intimate, decorative art mixing "vulgar" subjects drawn from street theatre with aristocratic scenes from château life. The
"fête galante" is born in art consecrating love and women as the chief subjects in painting. Architecture and decoration become light and refined favouring undulating curves and floral motifs
– the
Rococo style - over the vocabulary of classicism and geometry. This is the great period of private and aristocratic rather than royal architecture, notably the hôtels particuliers
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris.
Course Schedule : Fridays 10:30 am – 12:00 noon .
1.
19 Nov. - Gallery – Sunset: The end of the reign of the Louis XIV, 1690-1715.
2.
26 Nov. - Gallery – A new Dawn :
Paris under the Regent Philippe d’Orléans, 1715-1723
.
3.
3 Dec. - Visit – Hôtel de Soubise.
Meet 60 rue des Francs Bourgeois 75003 in courtyard.
4.
10 Dec. - Visit – Musée du Louvre . Meet inside pyramid by information desk.
Course fee: 80 € for the 4 sessions or 25 € for one session.
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Jean-Michel Basquiat Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (until 30 Jan. 2011).
Thursday 18 November 12:15 to 1:45 pm.
This is the greatest retrospective ever organized, celebrating the 50 th anniversary of the birth of the most notorious bad boy artist of 1980’s New York. Of mixed Puerto Rican and Haitian origins Basquiat was first noticed through his street graffiti which he signed as “ Samo ” (anagram of “same old shit”) in the early ‘80’s. His rise to fame and notoriety was almost immediate. Having been shown in Documenta in Germany in 1982, the next year he was the youngest and first black artist to be shown at the Whitney biennial
. By 1984 he’d met and started collaborating with the king of Pop Art, Andy Warhol . His death of a drug overdose in 1988 at 27 sealed his reputation forever, turning him into the Van Gogh of downtown Manhattan. His paintings, labeled as “ primitive expressionism”,
combine angry lettering, dripping paint, voodoo and religious symbols, sculls and cartoon characters and are now worth millions.
Place: Lobby of Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris , 11 avenue du Président Wilson 75116.
Métro: Iéna (line 9) Time: 12 noon for 12:15 start.
Please Bring ? for ticket.
* Please note that some times are liable to change after museum reservations have been confirmed.
Some museum tickets may also be reduced depending on the number of participants in the group.

– An Elegant Modernity at the Petit Palais (until 16 Jan. 2011).
Thursday 25 November 11:30 am -1pm.
Giusseppe de Nittis (1846-1884) is one of the most cosmopolitan painters of his era. Born in Bari, Italy he spent his youth in Naples before moving to Paris and later London. In Paris he befriended both Manet and Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. He is a fine landscape painter and a great chronicler of modern and fashionable life in the great capitals of the 19 th century. He painted the boulevards, gardens and racecourses of Paris, Trafalgar square and the busy Strand in London, and chic ladies in both cities. Among his most famous paintings are those of the ruins of the
Tuileries palace in Paris burnt by the Commune in 1871. He frequently juxtaposed the elegant bourgeois with the lower classes as they mixed on the busy sidewalks of the two capital cities in a vision that is often humorous and sometimes pathetic. His refined style mixes the elegant greys of Manet with the fugitive light effects of the
Impressionists. He died suddenly of an aneurism at 38 cutting short a brilliant career.
Place : Petit Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill 75008. Meet on steps. Métro : Champs Elysées Clémenceau (lines
1,13). Time : 11:15 am for 11:30 start.
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Centre Georges Pompidou (1 December 2010 to 21 March 2011).
Thursday 2 December 11:30 am – 1:15 pm.
This is the greatest exhibition ever organized in France on one of the fundamental movements of modern art architecture and design, De Stijl (the “style”), founded in Holland in 1918 by Piet Mondrian , Theo Van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveld . De Stijl offered a utopian vision of art and design for a world traumatized by the catastrophe of the First World War. Reducing design to its fundamentals, the primary colors, black, white and basic geometric shapes it had a revolutionary impact on the rest of the 20 th century by wiping out traditional styles, history and ornament.
Mondrian invented a form of geometric abstraction inspired by French Cubism but going much further in its purity and minimalism. All the great figures and aspects of the movement are represented in his remarkable exhibition: Bart Van der Leck , Georges Vantongerloo , Vilmos Huszar, the architects J.J.P. Oud, Robert van't Hoff and Jan Wils, the poet
Anthony Kok, the graphic designer Piet Zwart and the architect and urbanist CornelisVan Eesteren. Our visit will be on the 2 nd day of the exhibition, which should be much less crowded than later.
Place : Centre Georges Pompidou 75004. Meet in downstairs lobby by information desk.
Métro : Métro Hôtel de Ville (lines 1, 11), Rambuteau (line11).
Time : 11:15 am for 11:30 start.
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Gallery lecture on the Grand Palais exhibition (until 24 Jan. 2011).
Thursday 9 December 10:30 am -12 noon.
This is the greatest exhibition ever organized on the career of the chief French Impressionist painter Claude Monet
(1840-1926). Major paintings from European and American museums are being shown together, often for the first time. Our lecture will focus on key works illustrating each of the major periods and themes of Monet’s long and prolific career: the early landscapes and seascapes of Ste Adresse of the 1860’s, the many portrayals of his young wife
Camille and his son Jean, the high Impressionist paintings of the Argenteuil period, the “travel” pictures of different
French regions in the 1880’s, the celebrated “series” of the 1890’s ( Grainstacks, Poplars, Rouen Cathedrals and
Mornings on the Seine ) concluding with the great Waterlilly compositions of the early 20 th century.
Place : Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos - 1, rue Jacques Cœur 75004 Paris.
Métro : Métro Bastille – exit boulevard Henri IV. Time : 10:00 am for coffee or tea, 10:30 for lecture.
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History as Spectacle
Musée d’Orsay (28 Sep. 2010 – 6 Feb. 2011).
Thursday 9 December 5 pm – 6:30 pm.
Much denigrated in the 20 th century, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) was one of the most celebrated academic painters of the 19 th century and during his lifetime one of the great stars of French art. He is now back in fashion and this is the first major exhibition of his work since the retrospective held the year of his death in 1904! His highly detailed and illusionist renderings of history notably Greek and Roman, but also of the period of Louis XIV, his
Oriental harems and slave markets and sexy female nudes make for a most entertaining exhibition. They combine fascinating details of historical costume and architecture with all of the obsessions and hang-ups of the Victorian Age.
Place: Musée d’Orsay 75007. Métro: Solférino (line12) or Musée d’Orsay (RER C).
Time : 5:15 for 5:30 pm start. Bring ? for ticket.
Course fee: 100 € for 5 sessions, 80 € for 4 sessions or 25 € for one session.
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Paris Art Studies at Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos - 1, rue Jacques Cœur 75004 Paris.
Métro Bastille – exit boulevard Henri IV. Paris Art Studies telephone: 06 86 58 98 09
Email : contactus@parisartstudies.com Website: www.parisartstudies.com