From the Champs-Élysées to the Eiffel Tower, the French capital is getting the mother of all makeovers.
Tag Archives: Paris
Art Insider: Van Gogh’s Creative Spark In Paris
Vincent Van Gogh was a master of creating sumptuous still lifes. In this latest Expert Voices, Sotheby’s specialist Simon Stock describes how his painting “Nature Morte: Vase Aux Glaïeuls”, offered in Sotheby’s upcoming Modern Art Evening Sale (9 October | Hong Kong), perfectly captured the essence of the artist’s first summer in Paris in 1886. Discover how the artist infused his inspiration of Japanese wood block prints into his paintings, and how he painstakingly captured the joy of living in his still lifes, but also the transience of life.
Paris Walks: ‘Le Marais’
The fashionable Marais district in the 4th arrondissement, also known as SoMa (South Marais), is filled with hip boutiques, galleries, and gay bars. Once the city’s Jewish quarter, the area still hosts numerous kosher restaurants. The grassy Place des Vosges is home to elegant arcades and the Musée Victor Hugo, where the writer lived. Streets around Saint-Paul metro lead to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
Art Exhibit: ‘Chaïm Soutine / Willem de Kooning’ At The Musée de l’Orangerie
The Musée de l’Orangerie presents an exhibition bringing together the works of Chaïm Soutine (1893–1943), painter of the Paris School of Russian origin (now Belarus) and Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), abstract expressionist American of Dutch origin.
This exhibition will focus more specifically on exploring the impact of Soutine’s painting on the pictorial vision of the great American painter.
Soutine indeed marked the generation of post-war painters by the expressive force of his painting and his figure of “accursed artist”, grappling with the vicissitudes and excesses of Parisian bohemia. His work was particularly visible in the United States between the 1930s and 1950s, when the figurative artist of European tradition was re-read in the light of new artistic theories. The gestural painting and the pronounced impasto of Soutine’s canvases lead critics and curators to proclaim him a “prophet”, herald of American abstract expressionism.
It was precisely at the turn of the 1950s that Willem de Kooning began the pictorial work of Women, canvases in which a singular expressionism was built, between figuration and abstraction. The development of this new language corresponds to the moment when the painter summons the artistic universe of Chaïm Soutine and confronts it. De Kooning discovered his predecessor’s paintings in the 1930s, then at the retrospective which devoted the painter to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1950. He was then particularly marked by the presentation of Soutine’s paintings in the Foundation’s collections. Barnes of Philadelphia, where he visited with his wife Elaine in June 1952.
Paris Walks: Île Saint-Louis
Île Saint-Louis, eleven hectares in size, is one of two natural islands in the Seine river, in Paris, France. Île Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by four bridges to both banks of the river and to the Île de la Cité by the Pont Saint-Louis.
Tours: The Musée d’Orsay In Paris, France (4K Video)
The Musée d’Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography.
Paris Walks: Île De La Cité, River Seine, France (4K)
The Île de la Cité is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508 Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace on the island.
Museum Tour: The Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Musée Marmottan Monet features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1872 Impression, Sunrise. Marmottan Museum’s fame is the result of a donation in 1966 by Michel Monet, Claude’s second son and only heir.
Paris Walks: Sacré-Cœur In The Montmartre (4K)
Montmartre is a large hill in Paris’s 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank in the northern section of the city.
The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica and often simply Sacré-Cœur, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica in Paris, France, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sacré-Cœur Basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.
Walking Tour: Palace Of Versailles In Paris, France
The Palace of Versailles has been listed as a World Heritage Site for 30 years and is one of the greatest achievements in French 17th century art. Louis XIII‘s old hunting pavilion was transformed and extended by his son, Louis XIV, when he installed the Court and government there in 1682. A succession of kings continued to embellish the Palace up until the French Revolution.
Today the Palace contains 2,300 rooms spread over 63,154 m2.



