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of the most influential sculptors to emerge before WWII was the Romanian-born and Paris-based Constantin Brancusi, whose work can be seen in the Atelier Brancusi outside the Centre Pompidou. After the war César Baldaccini – known simply as César to the world – used iron and scrap metal to create his imaginary insects and animals, later graduating to pliable plastics. Among his best-known works are the Centaur statue (Map) in the 6e and the statuette handed to actors at the Césars (French cinema’s equivalent to the Oscars). Two sculptors who lived and worked most of their adult lives in Paris and each have a museum devoted to their life and work are Ossip Zadkine and Antoine Bourdelle, though the museum of the latter was under renovation at the time of research.

In 1936 France put forward a bill providing for ‘the creation of monumental decorations in public buildings’ by allotting 1% of all building costs to public art, but this did not really get off the ground for another half-century when Daniel Buren’s Les Deux Plateaux sculpture Click here was commissioned at Palais Royal. The whole concept mushroomed, and artwork appeared everywhere: in the Jardin des Tuileries (The Welcoming Hands; Click here), throughout La Défense Click here, Parc de la Villette (eg Bicyclette Ensevelie, 1990; Click here) and even in the metro (boxed text). In addition, Paris counts some 120 commissioned murals, including a fine set of wall paintings by a group of four artists at 52 rue de Belleville, 20e (Map); and one by Robert Combas at 3 rue des Haudriettes, 3e (Map).

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MUSIC

In the 17th and 18th centuries French baroque music influenced much of Europe’s musical output. Composers François Couperin and Jean Philippe Rameau were two luminaries of this period.

France produced and cultivated a number of brilliant composers in the 19th century, including Hector Berlioz, Charles Gounod, César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns and Georges Bizet. Berlioz was the founder of modern orchestration, while Franck’s organ compositions sparked a musical renaissance in France that would go on to produce such greats as Gabriel Fauré, and the musical impressionists Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. The latter’s adaptations of poems are among the greatest contributions to the world of music.

More-recent classical composers include Olivier Messiaen, for decades the chief organist at the Église de la Trinité in the 9e, who (until his death in 1992 at the age of 84) combined modern, almost mystical music with natural sounds such as birdsong. His student, the radical Pierre Boulez, includes computer-generated sound in his compositions.

Jazz hit Paris with a bang in the 1920s and has remained popular ever since. France’s contribution to the world of jazz has been great, including the violinist Stéphane Grapelli and the legendary three-fingered Roma guitarist Django Reinhardt.

The most popular form of indigenous music is the chanson française, with a tradition going back to the troubadours of the Middle Ages. ‘French songs’ have always emphasised lyrics over music and rhythm, which may explain the enormous success of rap in France in the 1990s, especially of groups like MC Solaar, NTM and I Am. The chanson tradition, celebrated by street singers such as Lucienne Delisle and Dahlia, was revived from the 1930s onwards by the likes of Édith Piaf and Charles Trénet. In the 1950s singers such as Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Claude Nougaro, Jacques Brel and Barbara became national stars; the music of balladeer/folk singer Serge Gainsbourg – very charming, very sexy and very French – remains enormously popular a decade and a half after his death.

The turn of the new millennium saw a revival of this genre called la nouvelle chanson française. Among the most exciting performers of this old-fashioned, slightly wordy genre are Vincent Delerm, Bénabar, Jeanne Cherhal, Camille, Soha and a group called Les Têtes Raides.

France was among the first countries to ‘discover’ sono mondiale (world music). You’ll hear everything from Algerian rai and