New topic Photos

[humbert]

Note that I will be on a business trip in the 6th arrondissement of Paris this week. I'll take a few photos if I can.

How different are the arrondissements one from each other?

[scarface]

Note that I will be on a business trip in the 6th arrondissement of Paris this week. I'll take a few photos if I can.

How different are the arrondissements one from each other?

Well, they are very different, in terms of size, population and landcapes. Western Paris (the 16th, the 8th, the south of the 17th and the south of the 18th arrondissements and its centre (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th arrondissements) are much wealthier than the other arrondissements. These arrondissements are touristic areas too.

The 7th arrondissement, the city's wealthiest (the Eiffel tower is located on this arrondissement) has an average household income more than three times that of the 19th, the city's poorest.

When you visited Paris, I bet you haven't been to the north-eastern part of the town - in the 19th or in the 20th arrondissements, or in the area of la Chapelle in the 18th arrondissement (this is where the "Crack hill" is located) - because few tourists go there.

[scarface]

Tonight, I'm going to share a few photos taken in Paris last week.
Note that to see the image full-size in Firefox, you can click right on them and open them in a new tab.


A few photos taken in the Louvre.



In order to skip the line, I posed as a VIP and it worked: I was well-dressed, and I was speaking French it is the most important I think (each time a guide asks you a question in Paris, it's in English, and they are surprised when you are answering in French). Note that the Mcdonald's of the Champs Elysées is the only Mcdonald's in France where they take the orders and serve the customers speaking both French and English (when I'm answering in French, they are surprised because probably 80% of the customers are foreigners).


The Winged Victory of Samothrace, or the Niké of Samothrace, is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the beginning of the 2nd century BC. It is composed of a statue representing the goddess Niké (Victory), whose head and arms are missing and its base is in the shape of a ship's bow.
Winged Victory has been exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris, at the top of the main staircase, since 1884. Greece is seeking the return of the sculpture.






In the midnight Blue room known as Salle des Etats.

Maybe some of you have seen this painting before.
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It has been described as "the best known, the most visited and the most parodied work of art in the world. The world's most famous painting needs a space big enough to welcome its many admirers. It is therefore housed in the Louvre's largest rouge, the salles des Etats, Which is also home to other remarkable paintings such as The Wedding Feast at Cana by Veronese.





The Wedding Feast at Cana (Nozze di Cana, 1562–1563), by Paolo Veronese, is a representational painting that depicts the biblical story of the Wedding at Cana, at which Jesus miraculously converts water into red wine. The pictorial area (67.29 m2) of the canvas makes The Wedding Feast at Cana the most expansive picture in the paintings collection of the Musée du Louvre.






In The Red Rooms, which derived their name from the colour of their walls, are home to some of the largest paintings in the Louvre, including masterpieces by the greatest 19th-century French painters from David to Delacroix.


Andromache Mourning Hector is a 1783 oil painting by Jacques-Louis David. The painting depicts an image from Homer's Iliad, showing Andromache, comforted by her son, mourning over her husband Hector, who has been killed by Achilles. This painting, presented on 23 August 1783, brought David election to the Académie Royale in 1784.



The Death of Marat (La Mort de Marat or Marat Assassiné) is a 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting the artist's friend and murdered French revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat



The Death of Sardanapalus (La Mort de Sardanapale) is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. The Death of Sardanapalus is based on the tale of Sardanapalus, a king of Assyria, from the historical library of Diodorus Siculus, the ancient Greek historian, and is a work of the era of Romanticism.



The Raft of the Medusa
Unusually for his period, Géricault began to work on this huge painting without having been commissioned. The resulting composition was a history painting, but based on a recent event rather than a 'prestigious' historical subject. The figures in the scene are not mythological heroes or brave warriors, but victims of a shipwreck, forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. The painter chose the bleakest moment, when they saw the ship that would eventually rescue them sailing away in the distance.
This painting, first exhibited in 1819, was more than just a depiction of a tragedy. After the fall of the First Empire in 1815, the Bourbon kings had returned to power and the shipwreck discredited the newly restored monarchy: the captain of the Medusa had obtained his position on the strength of his connections with power rather than his competence; in fact, he had not sailed at all in the past twenty years! Unable to prevent the ship from running aground, he left part of his crew to drift on a makeshift raft.



Grande Odalisque is an oil painting of 1814 by Ingres depicting an odalisque.



The Intervention of the Sabine Women is a 1799 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David, showing a legendary episode following the abduction of the Sabine women by the founding generation of Rome






The Athena of Velletri or Velletri Pallas is a type of classical marble statue of Athena, wearing a helmet.



The red figure calyx krater is details a scene representing the gathering of the Argonauts. You can see Castor wearing a pilos-like helmet. This prominent pottery medium was made in Athens (460-450 BC)






A visit to the Pantheon in the 6th arrondissement of Paris



the coronation of Charlemagne


the baptism of Clovis


Attila and his army are marching across Paris


The martyrdom of Saint Denis










A few photos taken from the top of the Panthéon

View to the west. You can see the eiffel tower and the skyscrapers of La défense.


View to the north. You can see the renovation of the cathedral Notre Dame


View to the east.






A few photos taken In the 6th arrondissement.

The Luxembourg gardens
Situated on the border between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Latin Quarter, the Luxembourg Gardens, inspired by the Boboli Gardens in Florence, were created upon the initiative of Queen Marie de Medici in 1612.




A protest for Palestine near the Senate


The famous bar La Rotonde


A statue of Balzac on Boulevard Raspail


A tramp on the Boulevard du Montparnasse

[humbert]

Pics from Paris. Where are you living now? I thought you were somewhere near Annecy.

I don't know anything about art and humanities. When I visited the Louvre back in 2007, I went because I wanted to see the Mona Lisa for myself. It was behind (I assume) bullet-proof glass and there was a red rope around it preventing people from getting any closer. I did not see many of the other exhibits in the pictures you uploaded. Either I missed them or they weren't there at the time.

Here's an interesting question. How did the Mona Lisa and other artworks survive WWII? As I understand it Göring looted most of them. I'd think the Mona Lisa would have been his first target.

With respect to Notre-Dame, any idea when the restoration will be finished? Can they make it as good as new, or were many things lost forever. BTW, was Napoleon's crown at Notre-Dame or somewhere else?