Berthe Weill... again

Berthe Weill, honoured again, and once more thanks to my friend Marianne Le Morvan, and of course also thanks to the initiative to create a new little garden, adjacent to the Picasso Museum. People were asked to choose which name to give to this garden… and the choice was Berthe Weill. I don’t think anybody would have thought of her if it wasn’t for Marianne Le Morvan, who has made it a task to honour this lady, the gallerist who was the first to sell a Picasso in Paris, the first to sell a Matisse, who was the friend of tens and tens of artists, who was the only one to organise a Modigliani solo exhibition during his lifetime… and who never got rich. On the top picture we can see the portrait Picasso made of Berthe, a cartoon where she is in the centre of a group of painters - Chagall, Derain, Léger, Braque, Picasso… and the front page of Marianne’s book, which you can still buy here. You can also get an idea of who Berthe was by looking at my post from 2015, here.  

  

The inauguration of the little garden took place March 18, in the presence of the Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo. We can see Mme Hidalgo here accompanied by the Mayor of the 3^rd arrondissement, Pierre Aidenbaum.

… and here we can see Marianne in discussion…

… and at last some views of the newly created little Berthe Weill Garden.

My first visit...

I'm definitely not a hunter... I hesitated a lot before visiting, for the first time, the "Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature" (Museum of Hunting and Nature), which you can find in the Marais area. It was a nice surprise!

The museum is housed in two 17th century buildings, "hôtels particuliers" - one of them designed by François Mansart, the architect of a number of famous castles, churches and other buildings - and was created in 1964, on a private initiative. It's now operated by a foundation. 

The restoration of the buildings has given room to the traditional, the original, as well as to modern design. 

As you can expect, you will find a lot of trophies and taxidermined animals and also the weapons to kill them..., but what I especially appreciated...

A lot of room has been given to works by contemporary artists, who have had the possibility to create their own animal versions. Here are some examples - see also the top picture. (On the walls there are also some 16th century tapestries, some classical paintings by Paul Peter Rubens, Lucas Cranach the Elder...)

Swedish contemporary art.

There is an inscription to be read on the ceiling, in one of the rooms of the 16^th century “hôtel particulier” (town house), “Hôtel de Marle”, in the Marais area. It reads “POST FUNERA FIDUS”, which, if something remains from my Latin lessons, should mean something like “after death, faithful / loyal”.  It seems to be a message to the father of a son who inherited the place. Well, this has actually nothing to do with what I wanted to report about, but... 

Under the beautiful ceiling…

… there is now an art exhibition ongoing – until August 26.  We are in the “Institut Suédois” (Swedish Institute) and the works of some contemporary 30 Swedish artists living in Paris are exhibited.  You can read more about the Swedish Institute here and about the art exhibition and the artists here.

This beautiful building was bought by the Swedish State in 1965, was heavily renovated and is open to public since 1971.  I already wrote about it several times, e.g. here, here and here.

The exhibition opened by a vernissage, July 11, in the presence of almost all the artists. We can see them (top left) standing on the stairs leading to the beautiful garden. The official opening was declared by the Swedish Ambassador, Veronika Wand-Danielsson, and we can see her (top right) together with the exhibition curator Christian Alandente, with the head of the Institute, also Councillor for cultural affairs at the Embassy, Ewa Kumlin, with Kerstin Decroix, representing the unfortunately absent president of the “Association Artisitique Suédoise à Paris” (Riina Ingel) and with the Institute’s art project manager Marion Alluchon.

More than 500 people attended during this beautiful summer evening. Many are members of the “Association Artistique Suédoise à Paris”, others will hopefully join. (Yes, I’m on the board of the association.) The association has been active since 1957 and is there to encourage Swedish artists working and living in France. You can read about it here.   

The weather wasn’t the best…

When the weather is warmer and drier, a Tuesday evening in the Marais, all the streets, bars, restaurants… should be crowded. Well, the weather wasn’t warm and dry the other day.

If you wanted a Vélib’ bike, it was easy to find one.

Auguste Comte

”Ordem e Progresso” are words that you can find on the Brazilian flag. Do you know the origin of these words? They are inspired by the motto “L’amour pour principe et l’ordre pour base; le progrès pour but. » (Love as a principle and order as the basis; progress as the goal.)  Some further explanations may be needed.

This motto was created by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), a French philosopher, founder of the discipline of sociology and the doctrine of positivism. He is considered to be the first “philosopher of science”, partly influenced by the utopian socialist Saint-Simon (1760-1825) - creator of the ideology known as industrialism - to whom Auguste was a secretary and collaborator for a few years. Auguste wanted to remedy the disorder created by revolutions and worked for a social doctrine based on science. He has heavily influenced social thinkers like Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, George Elliot… He’s also considered as the creator of words like sociology and altruism.

Linked to his platonic but absolute love of a lady, with the name of Clotilde De Vaux (1815-46), mourning her death (at the age of 31), Auguste tried to reorganize his philosophical theories into a new positivist secular religion, the Positivist Church or the Religion of Humanity. So there is no God, ... but there is a Sainte Clotilde, celebrated each April 6. The pillars of this religion are altruism (selfless dedication to others), order (no revolutions) and progress (the consequences of industrial and technical breakthroughs).

His religion had a modest success in France and elsewhere, with some kind of an exception for Brazil, where the Church was created in 1881. Some participants of the military “coup d’état” in 1889, when the Republic of Brazil was proclaimed, were members of the Church... and that’s how Auguste’s motto, “Ordem e Progresso” arrived on the flag. There are still some temples in Brazil, here the one at Porto Alegre.

There is also one temple in Paris (in the Marais area, Rue Payenne), today rather to be considered as a museum. It dates from 1905 and was created by Brazilians. It’s situated in the same building where Clotilde De Vaux lived. (Originally this building was built and inhabited by the architect François Mansart (1598-1666)). On top of the altar, we can of course see Clotilde, with a symbolic child to illustrate the future.

The wall decorations give some ideas of on what the Religion of Humanity is based. Maybe a special word about the last one: “Female moral superiority”, illustrated by Héloïse, part of the – at least in France – famous 12^th century couple Héloïse and Abélard. For his time, Auguste was actually quite a feminist.

It’s possible to visit the apartment (Rue Monsieur Le Prince) where Auguste lived from 1841 until his death in 1857. All furniture, ornamental objects, books… are the real ones, as in 1857, including the portrait of Auguste and of Clotilde - in front of which Auguste kneeled and prayed for 40 minutes every day after her death in 1846.

Auguste and Clotilde were and are not forgotten and have been celebrated: Auguste Comte’s statue (with Clotilde), from 1902, can be found on a very prestigious place, Place de la Sorbonne.

Clotilde’s bust can also be found on Rue Clotilde De Vaux, not far from Place de la Bastille.

There is also a Rue Auguste Comte, just behind the Luxembourg Gardens, a quite long street with a number of interesting buildings.

Both Clotilde and Auguste are buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery, but not together. Clotilde’s grave, which Auguste obviously visited every day, has recently been transformed and for some reason the name you can now read is Marie de Ficquelmont. Her birth name was Clotilde Marie de Ficquelmont. It’s obviously a family grave. Her brothers were Maximilien Marie (a friend of Auguste who introduced Clotilde to Auguste) and Léonard Marie. The marble book which once was on her tomb in now to be found on Auguste’s grave, behind which you can also find a monument, a Magna Mater, by a Brazilian artist, Da Silva Oliveira, of course again with Clotilde, but also with medallions of Rosalie Boyer Comte (his mother) and Sophie Bliaux Thomas (his long-time servant). No trace here of his wife, Caroline Massin. They married in 1825, separated in 1842. They had some difficult years together.  It should perhaps also be added that Auguste during his marriage actually was at a mental hospital for a while, tried suicide (jumped from the Pont des Arts)… Auguste’s followers have obviously done their best to have Caroline Massin Comte forgotten.

Picasso Museum reopened

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Paris Picasso Museum opened to public again at the end of October, after five years of renovation – the double in time and costs of what was planned.

One may ask the question, why this 17^th century building in the Marais – Hôtel Salé - was chosen for the Picasso collection. It took six years to prepare the first opening in 1985 and now another five years to remodel and create more space. It has obviously been a difficult task to preserve some of the old classified interiors and at the same time create space, making the art visible. A simpler, modern, building, more adapted to Picasso’s art might have been a better – and cheaper solution? Anyhow, much more space has now been made available to accommodate the world’s biggest Picasso collection, with some 500 Picasso works exhibited, based on donations (tax issues) by Picasso and his heirs – and you can also see part of Picasso’s private collection – which included Corot, Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Matisse, Renoir, Le Douanier Rousseau, Chirico, Braque, Giacometti...  

You may have expected a chronological presentation (like at the nice Picasso Museum in Barcelona) – the early years followed by the blue and rose periods, the African-influenced period, by the cubism… but the logic here is often different, more following themes, meaning that a painting from 1895 may be the immediate neighbour of one from 1971. Some people were accompanied by guides. It may be a good solution for the understanding of the presentation.

You are allowed to take photos and I took many, but as most of the art is protected by glass, the reflections make it rather impossible to obtain decent pictures. Anyhow, it’s easy to find good illustrations on the net…

One detail:  You can find the African masks, which we also can see on a photo taken in his little workshop at Bateau Lavoir (see previous post) and which inspired his African period - and the creation of what may be considered as the first cubism painting, from 1907 (not here – at MMA), known as the “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” – actually first called “The Brothel of Avignon” referring to an address in Barcelona, Carrer d'Avinyó.

I wish to draw your attention to the fact that although the official closing hour is 6 pm, rooms start to get evacuated at 5:40 pm – I could not visit some last rooms.  

Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie Church

The Sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie Church, built 1628-46, was once part of a Franciscan convent. Elisabeth was a 13^th century Hungarian princess who supported the Franciscan movement, died young, became a symbol of Christian charity and was canonized only a few years after her death.

On the below plan from 1739 you can see the convent and the church placed between the priory Saint-Martin-des-Champs (Saint Martin in the Fields) – now the National Conservatory for Arts and Crafts and the “Arts-et-Métiers” Museum (see previous posts here and here) and the The Temple (see previous posts here).

The Revolution and later the Haussmannian reshaping of Paris has now left us with just the church.

Most of the interior, including the stained glass windows and the organ are from the 19^th century. The church had to be redecorated after it had been used as a warehouse during the first revolutionary years. Around the ambulatory you can find nice wooden 17^th century bas-reliefs, brought there from the Saint Vaast Abbey in northern France. 

There is an indirect link to the Knight Templars who occupied The Temple until the order was brutally dissolved early 14th century. The Sainte Elisabeth Church is today the church of the Knights of the Order of Malta, somehow indirectly the heirs of the Knight Templars. We can see their banners in the church.