Paris and Picasso

And shortly after my last blog was published, I whizzed off to Paris to meet my California-based daughter over to a medical conference in the City of Light. And a lovely interlude, that was. Super, and rare, to spend a couple of days with my darling eldest and great to return to Paris after about a quarter of a century! I shared her room in Claridges on the Champs-Elysees; a bit of a thrill to be there and more so considering the facilities and 

Fraser-Claridges Champs Elysees, 74.

Part of the main internal courtyard.

quality plus the lovely view below the balustrade down to a huge courtyard below. 

We had a gentle time, wandering, stopping to savour the view or have a coffee, checking out Montmartre, the Seine, the boulevards. Best of all perhaps, we had a long trip to the Musee d’Orsay to see the just-opened Picasso, Bleu et Rose, an absolutely wonderful and huge exhibition of these two periods of his early painting life. [A joint exhibition by the Musee d'Orsay and the Musee Nationale Picasso-Paris] The extraordinary inventiveness and richness of talent just pulsated from the many, many works of art on view from the period between 1900 and 1906. Picasso arrived in Paris at the Gare d'Orsay in 1900 aged only 18 but already a precocious and confident artist.

 The seven years, with Picasso dividing his time until 1904 between Barcelona and Paris, show a huge range of styles  with evidence of artistic experiments and explorations, emerging. His palette of bright colours, and his subjects, reminiscent of the Post-Impressionism of Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh gradually shade into the blues and mauve monochromes of the Bleu period, [1901-1904] and eventually the rose pinks and reds of the 'Saltimbanques' period [1905- summer 1906] He also moved from depicting aspects of modern life, like the theatre and became immersed in representing the melancholy impoverished and inadequate like lonely absinthe drinkers and poor prostitutes.

Young Harlequin with Acrobat 1905

 It was a magical and privileged interlude for me not tainted by a last-minute dash Sian had to find me hanging around for the Thalys, from her Eurostar departure point, fortunately both in la Gare du Nord! I had claimed my passport from the room safe while the room was dark, early that morning and she slept. I had known I wouldn’t need my passport in the Schengen Area but couldn’t quite bring myself to leave it at home! So I had taken it from among a number of things in the safe and popped it directly into my handbag. Only, inadvertently, I had taken hers and subsequently, she, mine, without either of us thinking to check the name. But potential disaster was averted!

La Femme en Chemise [Madeleine] 1905

A favourite.

And a technicolour sky from my terrace to welcome
me back home to Beloved Brugge!