Night Au Musée: Faces, Flora, and Fauna

It had been a while since we had made it to a nocturne at the Louvre and since our last planned visit ended in an evening home with a sick husband, I think we were even more determined to break out and get there this past Friday after work! We decided to visit the new Arts d’Islam wing again since it is so large we didn’t even see half of the collection on the first visit. Now, a second visit down, we still have a lot more left to see.

These collections, even before the new wing was opened, have always been some of my favorites at the museum. The colors and prolific patternwork (which is often calligraphy transformed into decoration, giving it several layers of purpose) are endlessly stunning. I am fascinated by the lines of these works and love drawing inspiration from them. Their sense of scale and balance is so perfectly tuned.

Half way through this second visit, I realized that the overwhelming majority of the pieces I was drawn to that evening were depicting faces, flora, and fauna, the latter two being particularly common themes in Islam art. So, here is a second visit to the new wing for you, featuring the many faces, plants, and animals carved, painted, and smithed over centuries and across continents.

You can see pictures from our first visit to the Arts d’Islam wing here.

xo,

A.

Advertisement

Monday and Friday

The weeks have been busy around here and the end of last week was no exception. On Thursday evening, the Musée d’Orsay hosted a fashion show of pieces by young designers from the Studio Berçot. They had worked on designs inspired by the musée’s new exhibit: Impressionisme et la Mode (Impressionism and Fashion). It was a packed night with many designs that were interesting and thoughtful applications of more than 100 year old fashions and I always love these kind of current day events in museums that seem to bring a whole new life and dimension to the art on display. These are just a couple glimpses of what the night included. With such a packed house, getting pictures wasn’t easy!

I tried and tried to get a post about that event up on the blog on Friday but fate had other ideas for me and I had to finally give up when we arrived at R’s grandparents farmhouse in the countryside of the Sancerre region and no internet signal could be coaxed from any of the technology we brought with us. I was so excited to be away from the city, in that beautiful place and at this time of year, that I have to say, I let go of the frustration pretty quickly. I’ll be back on Wednesday with lots of pictures to share from that trip (oh, it was too short!) but here’s one peek:

Happy Monday!

xo,

A.