Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [197]
The work created a national embarrassment for the Bourbon dynasty, as Captain de Chaumareys was seen as being associated with the monarchy. French historian Jules Michelet, Alhadeff explains, “saw represented in the painting ‘the shipwreck of France.’ ” In Michelet’s words: “It is France itself, it is our whole society that he put to sea on the raft of the Medusa.” After the stir caused by the painting, France ultimately reconsidered its involvement in the slave trade, and Schmaltz was dismissed in the summer of 1820.
The Raft of the Medusa, now in the Louvre, is on my short list of the world’s most impressive paintings. If you visit the Père-Lachaise cemetery, you’ll also find a relief of the painting on Géricault’s tombstone. It was his magisterial work, largely synonymous with his name. Interestingly, Alhadeff notes that in 1997 the École Normale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts mounted an exhibition that included not only its numerous Géricault prints and drawings, but also a gigantic reconstruction of the raft. The replica rose more than two stories high and measured eight meters wide. This work was both a tribute to Géricault and a memorial to those lost in the tragedy.
MONUMENTS AND GARDENS
French Gardens: A Guide, Barbara Abbs with photographs by Deirdre Hall (Sagapress, 1994). The author divides this book geographically into four sections: north, the Paris region, the center, and the south; there are forty-one garden and park listings for Paris and the Île-de-France. Each entry includes directions with easy reference to the Michelin road atlas. Many private gardens are open to the public in June and sometimes during the first weekend of the month. These events—known as journées des portes d’ouvertes—are worth seeking out at local tourist offices or by using specific Web searches. Additionally, a day (or two) in September is reserved for the Fête des Jardins de Paris, allowing the public to access secluded gardens in the city that are normally closed.
The Garden Lover’s Guide to France, Patrick Taylor (Princeton Architectural Press, 1998). This book is undoubtedly a prettier package than French Gardens just above—the color photographs help present the beauty and unique highlights of the more than one hundred private and public gardens featured—though I don’t find it as detailed. Taylor has organized the gardens by five regions covering all of France, and Paris and the Île-de-France are well represented. A serviceable map is found at each chapter opener, and there is a glossary of French garden terms at the back of the book.
Notre-Dame of Paris: The Biography of a Cathedral, Allan Temko (Viking, 1952). “The road—every road—has led to this moment and this place. Paris in the thirteenth century was one of the main stopping points in history, like Athens in the fifth century before Christ, and Byzantium in the sixth century after. Each had a social and political lesson for the world; each made the world a gift of architecture: the Parthenon, Sancta Sophia, the western façade of Notre-Dame.” So opens one chapter in the most definitive book ever written on Paris’s most famous cathedral. With black-and-white photographs, a foldout of the cathedral’s plan, cross sections, and a great bibliography.
Doubtless you have your own Paris. It’s not geographical; it’s the place where life first came vividly to bloom for you, where you couldn’t believe the exquisite beauty of the buildings, or the clouds, or the sun that shone after the rain.
—Don George, “Paris on My Mind”
THE SEINE
The Seine, at Paris, is more than beautiful. Poets and neo-impressionists shift their attention to it as the mood strikes. But it is also the main character in the