Giuseppe De Nittis: La Modernité Elégante

A pleasant discovery at the Petit Palais today: an exhibition dedicated to Giuseppe De Nittis, a contemporary of Manet and Degas, in whose artworks Jules Claretie found 'un accent de modernité élégante qu'on n'avait pas eu, avant lui, à un tel degré'.

Here is an extract from the exhibition notes:
"Peintre de la vie moderne, De Nittis s'intéresse à la vie des boulevards, des Tuileries et aux courses hippiques d’Auteuil ou de Longchamp, attentif à noter les toilettes et les modes de l'élégance parisienne. C'est un paysagiste sensible, aussi habile à traduire les contrastes lumineux de son pays natal que les ciels brumeux d'Ile de France, ou les brouillards londoniens."

But it is perhaps as a painter of women that I find De Nittis excels himself: a pale curve of neck, a bare shoulder in the lamplight, the languid gaze of Léontine, his young, doe-eyed wife… In these canvases, the exhibition notes explain, De Nittis 'fait entrer le spectateur dans l’intimité féminine et crée une forte sensation de mystère'.

In Effet de Neige / Effetto di Neve (pictured above), a young woman sits contemplating the Parisian snowscape around her. Goncourt thought the work an 'extraordinaire symphonie de la blancheur', but the blinding whiteness is merely a backdrop: it is the sombre profiles of the subjects that stand out. The dress and folded brolly of the lady are black – as are the silhouette of the two birds that flit through the middle of the canvas: their pairing emphasising her solitude, their flight her stillness.

In Rêverie (en écoutant le piano) / Pensierosa (ascoltando il pianoforte), we encounter another young woman, again in profile and dressed in black – this time in a dim, sumptuous interior with a pink lampshade on a shelf and a bouquet of flowers behind her. An air of solitude and melancholy pervades the piece, and the night that enfolds the scene mutes the delicate melody that holds her in its thrall, leaving us with a picture of a pensive stillness suffused with a myriad private thoughts.

Paris Revisited

Changing lines at Châtelet, I find myself accosted by a young chap in a big blue afro and a pair of dodgy shades. 'C'est le jour de l'an, on s'amuse, on se détend!' he rhapsodised. 'Hop! Hop! Hop! On sourit!' he chides me jovially, but I am tired and hungover, and scowl as I storm past.

I emerge at the Hôtel de Ville to find Paris enveloped in a freezing fog.

Sauntering down towards Bastille – one of the few hardy boulevardiers to brave the cold – the years seem to dissipate in the mist and, through the gloom of the winter afternoon, familiar sights surge to greet me like long-lost friends from a crowd. There's the bibliothèque Baudoyer and the Harmonia Mundi; the dome of the église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis; the little lavomatic that used to gobble up my change and socks; and – round the corner – the solid, sensible, pretty Place des Vosges.

This is my Paris. Mon quartier – from way back when the burly boulanger across the road and the skinny fromager a little further on would turn to address me with an 'Alors, jeune homme…'; when I would grab a falafel pita wrap from the Pletzel on the way home from work, and the occasional box of calissons from Flo; and everyone was still coming to terms with the new funny money that was the euro.

Turning down the rue des Tournelles, I am reassured to find the Bistrot du Dôme still there at the other end, and the twin Bofingers still at the entrance of rue Jean Beausire. But which door? Which door? I can't remember – 1, 7, 13? Behind one was my poky little garçonnière that was home, once – home.

Salamandry in the Centre of France

'Est-ce que le salamandre crache le feu, les enfants?' asks the guide slyly, as we pause in front of a large trompe l'oeil specimen in the great hall at Azay-le-Rideau. He traces the fiery breath of the dragon-like creature with his laser penlight for good measure, but the little ones are hesitant.
'Oui?' ventures a boy at last, unable to deny the visual evidence before him.
'Eh ben non,' dismisses the guide breezily, 'ta mère t'explique!'

I do not get to see if youngster is crushed, but he is in good company. At the tender age of ten, François 1er, believing in the mythical powers of the salamander, elects to have it as his emblem, along with the motto: Nutrisco et extinguo – 'I nourish (the good) and extinguish (the bad)'.

This weekend being Easter, there is an Easter egg hunt on the grounds of the Château. The programme tantalisingly involves 'Œufs, Enigme et Chocolat', but is only for the under-12's. Our game young answerer needs to swot up on his biology, but I find myself hoping he manages to discover some chocolatey consolation in the meantime.

Celebrating Chambord

The royal domain is vast – the size of Paris intra muros. In the middle of it, rising out of the forested plain in an unbridled fantasy of tufa masonry, is the Château de Chambord. Here, surely, is a masterpiece of the French Renaissance: an edifice breathtaking in size and exquisite in ornamentation; not the seat of power, as the audioguide points out, but its manifestation.