Esprit de france - le blog

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Celebrating Le Nôtre’s 400 years birth 

Tuileries Gardens
From the 30th of May, 2013

André le Nôtre, gardener of King Louis XIV, was born 400 years ago, on the 12th of March 1613. Designer of over thirty parks in France, including 16 located in Ile de France, he shaped the French garden.

If the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles became the most famous French gardens, the Tuileries Gardens remain nonetheless a major creation of the reign of Louis XIV and were considered by their creator, André Le Nôtre, as one of his masterpieces. Their author, passed to posterity as the inventor of this new style of garden.

From the 30th of May, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Le Nôtre, a walk starting from the creator’s birthplace will guide visitors on the traces of the man who has shaped the site of the Tuileries. In six years, he redrew the boundaries, created terraces along the Seine and prolonged the perspective toward the future Champs Elysees. This walk, entitled “In the Footsteps of Le Nôtre in the Tuileries” offer to admire the landscape from a different point of view and shows what remains from Le Nôtre work.

This is an ideal tour to learn more about this site located a few meters from the Hotel Brighton in Paris.


Celebrating Le Nôtre’s 400 years birth 

From the 30th of May, 2013

Tuileries Gardens

Place de la Concorde
75001 Paris
www.louvre.fr

Eugène Boudin
Jacquemart-André museum
From the 22nd of March to the 22nd of July, 2013

The Jacquemart-André Museum presents the first Parisian retrospective since the end of the 19th century devoted to the painter Eugène Boudin.

Known for his seascapes and beach scenes, Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) was one of the first French artists to take his easel outside the studio to paint landscapes. In his numerous paintings, he especially focused on the rendering of elements and atmospheric effects. As such, he was one of the initiators of a renewed view of nature, and thus preceded the impressionists in this approach, not to mention his friend Claude Monet, who wrote late in life: “I owe everything to Boudin.”

Over the years, his palette became brighter and his touch lighter for a better rendition of reflections from the sky and water. From Normandy to Venice, which he discovered in his latter years, along with the beaches in the North, Brittany, and the South, he painted landscapes in movement in a subtle harmony of coloured greys. A genuine “King of the skies“, Eugène Boudin perfected the art of transcribing such changing elements as light, clouds, and waves. General director of the exhibition Laurent Manœuvre gathered nearly sixty paintings, watercolours, and drawings, thanks to loans from major international museums, portraying Eugène Boudin in his quest for light, from Honfleur to Venice, and paying a wonderful tribute to this artist so closely associated with the sea and its seascapes.

Eugène Boudin
From the 22nd of March to the 22nd of July, 2013
Musée Jacquemart-André
158 Boulevard Haussmann
75008 Paris
www.expo-eugeneboudin.com

Chagall – Between war and peace
Musée du Luxembourg
From the 21st of February to the 21st of July, 2013

Chagall was nearly a hundred when he died in 1985. He had crossed most of the 20th century, living through one revolution, two wars and a period of exile, and rubbing shoulders with some of its most avant-garde artists. His personal experience of History, the memory of people he knew, his travels and his homeland shine through in his work. Twentieth-century art largely repressed allegory and narrative.

It was because Chagall did not follow the rules and codes (or even dogma) of modernist thought, while drawing nourishment from it, that he was able to stay figurative and bear witness to his time. He borrowed some of the forms of the avant-garde movements (Cubism, Suprematism, Surrealism) and sometimes seems to come close to them, but in the end remained independent. The parallel between the images of war and the images of peace reveals the complexity of an oeuvre which can never be reduced to a particular genre, but enfolds events, situations and the artist’s feelings. Depending on the circumstances, Chagall comes back to a few themes, enriching them each time with a personal dimension: his home town of Vitebsk, the Jewish traditions of his childhood, episodes from the Bible, including the Crucifixion, the couple and family life.

Opening with the outbreak of the First World War, the exhibition seeks to illustrate four key periods in Chagall’s life and work: Russia in wartime, Between the wars, Exile in the United States and The post-war years and the return to France.

This dialectic of war and peace in the broadest sense highlights the essential aspects of Chagall’s work. By exploring the decisive episodes in his life, it helps us understand the link between his vision of the human condition and his sincere, sensitive pictorial technique, which, thirty years after his death, is still strikingly innovative.


Chagall – Between war and peace
From the 21st of February to the 21st of July, 2013
Musée du Luxembourg
19 rue de Vaugirard
75006 Paris

Dalí
Centre Georges Pompidou
Until the 25th of March



The Centre Pompidou in Paris pays tribute to Salvador Dalí, one of the most complex and prolific artists of the 20th century.

Dalí is one of the undisputed masters in the history of modern art and one of its most popular figures at the same time. A highly controversial artist, his theatricality and greed (his nickname was “Avida Dollars”) as well as his provocative political stances were often derided. This new exhibition does not shy away from the sheer impact of his work to which his own larger- than-life persona, in turns genial and grotesque, is so intricately woven.

Over two hundred works (paintings, sculptures, drawings, etc.) are presented. Dalí never stops luring the viewer between two infinities, hovering between the infinitely small and the infinitely large, polarizing contractions and expansions. He switches from meticulous Flemish precision ( in a reference to Vermeer) to the showy baroque of tradition that he used in his museum-theatre in Figueras.

Among the masterpieces presented in Paris are some of Dalí’s most revered icons: The Persistence of Memory (Melting watches), 1931, Le Grand Masturbateur, 1929, Le Spectre du Sex appeal, 1934 as well as L’Énigme sans fin, 1938. The exhibition will also offer the opportunity to discover more than a hundred works on paper, objects, projects for stage and screen, films, photographs and excerpts from television programmes that reflect the intense activity of the artist turned “showman”.

The exhibition also shows the countless ephemeral works created by Dalí in front of an audience or a camera, which made him a precursor of performance art and happenings.

Dalí
Centre Georges Pompidou
Until the 25th of March

+33 (0)1 44 78 12 33

Auguste Rodin – « Rodin, Wings of Glory »
Espace Musées – Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
Until the end of April 2013

Since the end of 2012, the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport offers a free museum. This unique experience is offered to international passengers through Espace Musées, a new cultural showcase that promotes French artistic heritage, in partnership with Parisian leading museums. Espaces Musées is free and open from the first to the last flight of the day. Each year, two thematic exhibitions will take place in the Charles de Gaulle airport’s 2E Terminal (Hall M). Serge Lemoine, former president at the Orsay Museum, is in charge of artistic direction.

For the opening, Espaces Musées presents “Rodin, Wings of Glory” produced in partnership with the Rodin Museum. 50 original works including the masterpieces Le Penseur, Le Baiser, and L’Age d’airain will be presented until the end of April 2013. The theme of this first exhibition, evoking takeoff, is the occasion to discover unknown works by Auguste Rodin. Winged figures and a large plaster wing are shown for the first time. They are references to the conquest of the skies and space myth, challenge for a sculptor.

“Our ambition is to offer passengers we welcome each year at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport a walk rich in emotions, for the enjoyment of the trip to begin at the airport and for travelers from around the world to take with them one last image of France’s magic“, said Augustin de Romanet, Chairman – CEO of Aéroports de Paris.

Auguste Rodin – “Rodin, Wings of Glory”
Until the end of April 2013
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
Espace Musées
Terminal 2E – M Hall

Les Bénédictions, ou les Gloires

Saint-Honoré, Paris-Brest, Tarte Tatin….

As of today, indulge yourself at the Hotel Brighton Paris‘ brand new tea room located in the heart of Paris, right in front of the Tuileries Gardens.

You will choose among our selection of fine pastries from  « La Pâtisserie des Rêves », fine French pastries made by the magician of tastes Philippe Conticini. To be savored with a cup of tea from Mariages Frères or a fruit juice from Alain Milliat!

The tearoom is open everyday, from 2 pm to 7 pm at the ground floor of the hotel.

Hôtel Brighton Paris****
218, rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
01 47 03 61 61

The Paris-Brest

The Saint-Honoré

The Tarte Tatin

The Grand Cru

I have not shared a guest’s drawing in the Creative spirit section for a long time. Today, this is a special drawing I’m showing you, because it is signed by Sempé, illustrator of the books Le Petit Nicolas. This drawing dates back 2008 and was made for the Hotel Aiglon.

We are happy to introduce the Hotel Brighton’s bar opening, now welcoming you right in front of the Tuileries Garden.

Guests and passers-by attracted by this nice and fully redesigned space can now sit and enjoy this space full of daylight. On the menu: the delicious fuit juices from Alain Milliat, a selection of French wines and champagnes, teas from Mariages Frères and snacks from La Compagnie Alimentaire… that is a range of products selected with care.

The bar will be completed very soon with a tearoom offering pastries from La Patisserie des Rêves by Philippe Conticini « magician of tastes » and star Michelin chef.

The Hotel Brighton’s bar and tearoom are open every day from noon to 10 pm.

A visit of the bar….