Our afternoon (evening, really) art excursion was considerably different than this morning's visit to the Louvre. Whereas the Mona Lisa lives in one of Paris's oldest buildings, Dali's work is housed (on special exhibit until March 25) in one of the city's most modern.
A large, plexiglass tunnel climbs the exterior of the Centre Georges Pompidou. Inside this transparent cylinder, visitors ride the escalators up and down six floors to visit the libraries, restaurants and various galleries housed in this enormous building.
The view of the city, including the Notre Dame and the Tour Eifel, is a nice one, especially from the upper floors.
A large, plexiglass tunnel climbs the exterior of the Centre Georges Pompidou. Inside this transparent cylinder, visitors ride the escalators up and down six floors to visit the libraries, restaurants and various galleries housed in this enormous building.
The view of the city, including the Notre Dame and the Tour Eifel, is a nice one, especially from the upper floors.
As with the Louvre, kids are free: No excuses for not exposing the next generation to the arts in this city! There is also a children's gallery--and thank goodness; the line-up to get into Dali was estimated to be an hour, so Trevor took the kids to the kids' gallery while I stood in line and began typing this blog post on my iPhone and eavesdropping on various intercultural couples and groups of friends nearby who were animatedly sharing with one another their views on everything from relationships, to education, to cruises!
For art enthusiasts familiar with the man who once filled a limo with cauliflowers, the Dali exhibition was fairly predictable. Nevertheless, it was more or less what I was looking for: a few familiar favourites (ie. the melting clocks, on loan from New York's MOMA for the exhibition) and some new material I had read or heard about, but not yet seen with my own eyes (i.e. Dali's twist on Millet's "Angelus", the original -- Millet's work -- which hangs, ironically, in the Louvre).
There was also a rather detailed pencil sketch which intrigued me.
For art enthusiasts familiar with the man who once filled a limo with cauliflowers, the Dali exhibition was fairly predictable. Nevertheless, it was more or less what I was looking for: a few familiar favourites (ie. the melting clocks, on loan from New York's MOMA for the exhibition) and some new material I had read or heard about, but not yet seen with my own eyes (i.e. Dali's twist on Millet's "Angelus", the original -- Millet's work -- which hangs, ironically, in the Louvre).
There was also a rather detailed pencil sketch which intrigued me.
The boys were less impressed with the "inappropriate" (my label, not theirs) nude sketches and bizarre paintings than I hoped they would be, but that could have been due to the late-ish hour of our visit: It was well past dinner time, and we soon left the gallery to head back to our hotel neighbourhood and Alex's self-professed "favourite" crepe place, from which we had promised they could have one last crepe before we head out of France for Germany tomorrow morning.
The boys had been keen for one final Eifel Tower visit ("to see it in the dark, mommy"), but after they were stuffed with crepes, they agreed that it might be wise to turn in... the alarm tomorrow morning rings at 6:30 a.m. local time!
The boys had been keen for one final Eifel Tower visit ("to see it in the dark, mommy"), but after they were stuffed with crepes, they agreed that it might be wise to turn in... the alarm tomorrow morning rings at 6:30 a.m. local time!
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