Elsien's Traveblogue

I found another painting by Suzanne Valadon in the City of Paris' Museum of Modern Art. It was 'Nude with a Striped Bed Cover', which I knew as an illustration in one of my Art History course books. The colours were completely different, a lot more grey-green in the painting, more orangey in the reproduction, if I remember well – will check when I get home. Suzanne Valadon's work was used in the Feminist bit of the course: in many of her paintings she upsets or countermands 'The Gaze', the way predominently male spectators look at paintings of predominantly women, mainly nude, painted by predominantly male painters, by painting herself or other women nude, gazing boldly back. This painting, however, is of a nude woman sitting on an unmade bed, reading, not looking. Oh well, never mind the feminist theory, I love the bold colours and the bold black lines.
A few of son Utrillo's churches were hanging next to Mum's. I think he paid the psychiatrists for some of his treatment in psychiatric hospitals with paintings.
Another woman, not nude, painted by a woman, Marie Laurencin, Apollinaire's girlfriend, is hanging on the other side of Valadon's.
It's a beautiful museum, beautiful building and not visited by tourists, although it's FREE and at spitting distance from the Eiffel Tower. It has lots of famous artists' paintings in it: Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, Matisse, but please don't tell anyone because I like to keep lots of museums I know and like quiet!
It was a very nice day, the sun was out, a bit pale and wintry, but sun even so. I walked all the way from Pigalle down to the museum, nearly at the Eiffel Tower, a good hour's walk. I walked through some streets I have never walked through and I've done a lot of walking in Paris in my life! Even in the expensive areas most Parisian women are dressed very much like women in London – the elegance of the Parisienne seems to have become a myth, although they are not as badly dressed as most women in Harlow or quite a few women in Brussels!
There were not many tourists about. Those that were, were mainly Asian, I think Japanese and Korean rather than Chinese or Taiwanese.
Still struggling through Hegel and his ideas on art – very theoretical, but I think I'm getting the hang of him.