Cam Tu

April 19, 2007

The beautiful days underneath the Moroccan sun were over. Goodbye monkeys, goodbye camels, goodbye sitting on gold designed benches sipping freshly squeezed orange juice and overly sweetened mint tea. After a restful week of spring break vacation, our class reunited from many different destinations. New class, new professor, and especially a new place to live -  the MIJE, which is located in “the heart of Paris” near Notre Dame, an historic aristocratic building that has been turned into a hostel for groups of students like us to come and make loud noise. Everyone got back safely and we were also glad that Gordon Wilson, our art teacher also had arrived in Paris, lugging his 40 pounds worth of art supplies behind him.

The first week was filled with many visits to different museums and interesting art sites. Each student carried a journal with color pencils to sketch and analyze the art piece of their choice. I’ve taken a few art classes before, but for most of the students, analyzing/sketching art is beyond their comfort zone. The first museum that we went to was the Rodin Museum. Upon entering the place, we could already see to our left Auguste Rodin’s Gates of Hell and his well known The Thinker (one of the many copies) to our right. Inside, sculptures were everywhere in all sorts of different sizes. It was impressive to see the versatility that the artist had created using the human figure. I sat down to do a sketch of one his sculptures called L’homme et sa pensée (Man and His Thought). After a good two hours of sketching and analyzing, I began to appreciate the composition, the textural contrast, the content, and many other art principles he had used that I hadn’t noticed at first glance. We had lunch in the beautiful garden outside and then headed over to the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. This museum is very large. Walking up to the museum, we passed by a wall full of graffiti and spray-paint cans lined up, welcoming visitors to give graffiti a try. Already I figured that the inside of the place was going to be quite different and interesting. Indeed, the place was filled with all sorts of artistic styles and media. We have the Matisse’s joyful dancing figures, television sets with videos like a hand struggling with another hand, political paintings, a giant pearl necklace, and countless other artworks. Some were interesting, some were bizarre, and some were just a piece of paper with a line on it.

During the next few days, we visited the Picasso National Museum and contemporary galleries around our area. Our morning class time was used for lectures and student presentations that would prepare us for the museum visits of the day. On Friday, we took the train to the Chartres Cathedral. By now, every gothic museum started to look the same, but there were a few features about Chartres that made it stand out. To me, there were a lot more spires and the exterior of the cathedral was very welcoming due to its extra side portals and stairs that I didn’t see at other cathedrals like the one in Strasbourg. I chose one of the stained-glass designs for my journal entry, which tied in very well to our next destination – the International Center for Stained-Glass Art. The place featured the glasswork of Henri Guérin. We saw bold and beautiful color stained-glass artwork that seemed to remove itself from religious content and became a unique style of its own. The last place that we visited was La Maison Picassiettes, an outsider mosaic art. This house is covered with mosaic art and is considered “naïve art” because the artist who did all the artwork had no formal training in art. People said that he worked in a cemetery and wanted to come home to a brighter atmosphere. He would collect glass and other pieces along his way home and use them to decorate his house. The place, I must say was amazing. The floor, the interior of his house to the exterior and his garden were filled with designs of flowers, biblical images, and famous buildings like the Chartres Cathedral. Everything was covered in mosaic artwork. I can still remember the image of standing in his garden looking at the bright and vibrant colors around me with the spring flowers and blossoms enhancing its beauty. It was unfortunate that we could not take pictures there because what I saw was indescribable. The whole week had deepened my appreciation for many of the art style that I had studied in school. One thing I definitely realized is that the pictures in the book will never do the artwork justice. To be here and see it in person, talk to people and artists, and to observe a piece of art beyond first impression – all that has left a very enriching image of the French experience for me.