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I have always preferred Paris’ small museums.

Within their confines, I can focus freely without the push and pull of crowds and each has something unique in perspective to offer while always tilting towards the beautiful. The Musée Cognacq-Jay was one of my favorites while I lived there, certainly as it was one of the least known bijoux of the Marais but also – for a girl who did not have a song to her name – it was free. 

It was quite sleepy in those days, so quiet that the guards were often caught nodding off in their perspective corners. Still, I went. The collection, which was founded by the owner of the La Samaritaine department store Ernest Cognacq and his wife Marie-Louise Jay in 1927, focuses entirely on the fine arts dating from the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment in France. The pieces – including paintings, drawings, furniture and objets d’art – were moved into the 16th century Hotel Donon by the City of Paris in 1990 and there they sat. It was entirely for the visitor to conjure up the romanticism of the period in order to be swept from one room to another.

No more. To celebrate its newly appointed renovation, the museum’s directors decided to give carte-blanche to designer Christian Lacroix. The irony that I would be spending some of my precious few hours in Paris seeing the work of Arles’ prodigal son was not lost on me but I have a great respect for the commitment that Mr. Lacroix gave to the renovation of the Musee Reattu and with the Rencontres International Photography Festival. I knew that I would be in for a treat and I was not disappointed.

The exhibition was, quite simply, one that I enjoyed for the sheer pleasure of the experience more than any other that I have seen in recent memory. It is a beautiful gift when the precise kind of art that your weary heart needs arrives just beyond the range of your tingling fingertips, isn’t it? For what was the most interesting to me, the most stimulating, was that, of the 450 pieces on display, 150 were borrowed from other institutions with the express hope of creating a confrontation between the 18th century – its ideals and deceptions – and our society today. Suddenly, the collection is electric and alive with relevance. 

Christian Lacroix’s signature touches can be seen throughout – from the truly spectacular carpets and wall furnishings that would be worthy of an exhibition in their own right, to examples of his magnificent theatrical costumes – and indeed he was heavily involved in the reorganization of one’s visit to the museum as well as the exhibition itself. He has expressed that his intention was not to look at the renovation so much as for a museum but as if it were the house of a collectionneur, perhaps the Cognacq-Jays themselves and it is a concept that exudes great warmth throughout. There was so much for me to take in – the details and the juxtapositions are fantastic – that I could have spent all day in those gilded rooms but time was not on my side. However, I did my best to steady my camera in the often shadowy spaces to try and share with you a bit of what I experienced and I was so gourmande that there will be a second post to follow. Like me, hopefully this beautiful exhibition just might set you dreaming…

If you happen to be in Paris…go! The exhibition closes this weekend. I promise you, you won’t regret stepping into the en(Light)enment.

Lumières: Carte-blanche à Christian Lacroix

Musée Cognacq-Jay

8, rue Elzevir

75003 Paris

Open 10am – 6pm

Closed Mondays. The exhibition ends on April 19th but there will much that will remain so do go.

Price: 8€ per person.

Unfortunately, the museum is not at all accessible to those with reduced-mobility.

There is app for the exhibition en français. If you are interested, see here.

For more information about the museum in English: click here.

Et en français: http://www.museecognacqjay.paris.fr/

Today’s post is my contribution to the monthly international blog party, “By Invitation Only” on the theme of “Life’s Luxuries.” To read all of the other takes on this theme, please hop over here.

PS. Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw that the lawn where these photos had been taken…had been mowed! I try not to be too moralistic around here but Life was certainly saying:

 “Make the most of everything while you can…”

After leaving the Place des Vosges, I walked briskly up to the Musee Carnavalet. My combat boots thudded on the pavement for I was dressed to make the most of my very short time in Paris and not to catch the eye of Mr. Cunningham. 

But, as always, when I turned into the gardens, which, kindly are available for the gander before the museum’s entry, time did what it always does in that particular spot: pirouette, curtsy, stop.

I must have had that goofy smile on my face for I could feel one of the gardner’s gaze swish across me like a shadow. She was about my age and also a redhead, just a more miniature Parisienne version of me. Yes, she even had that certain panache despite her bright green “Jardins de Paris” jumpsuit.

“You have an amazing job,” I blurted out with a vaguely show-girl arm sweep towards the topiary surrounding us.

She laughed, startled by my directness but nodded her head in agreement. “It isn’t always so glamorous though,” she added and I responded with “I am not so sure about that” head shake. We chatted a bit more and then wished each other a Bonne Journée.

As I continued towards the rue des Rosiers to sate my months-long craving for a felafel with all of the fixings (truly one of the great take-out options in Paris at only 5.50 Euros a pop), I thought, “That is why I am still mad about the Marais and always will be.”

For despite that every. single. storefront has been transformed into a clothing boutique featuring cool goods the likes of which I could never begin to afford…

…it is in this neighborhood that I feel the bonhomie that often eludes me elsewhere in the City of Light. And that makes the city not quite so big after all. I sat down on a bench in one of my favorite little squares and munched happily, shivering slightly while I did so and sighed a little valentine to the beautiful Marais.

Soundtrack for this post:

I am sending out my Very Best Wishes to those of you that are celebrating either Easter or Passover this weekend. And Peace and Joy to everyone…

Paris can impress, even on the best of days.

I needed to find the eye in the storm of the energy swirling around me and to get reacquainted with her under the best of circumstances. I had to remember…je connais cette ville, ça va, respire…I used to live here, I am no stranger.

But the truth of it was that I was also quite nervous about meeting my friend. Taking that leap from virtual to real makes my heart pound even if it is someone that I know I will adore (“but will they feel the same about me?” I always wonder). I am shy.

And so I bought my metro tickets while still on the TGV in order to directly hop on the 1 after weaving my way through the madness of the Gare de Lyon. In only three stops, I had arrived at the Saint Paul Station. I turned down the rue Saint-Antoine and tucked myself under the arches of the Place des Vosges.

Voila. An old friend was right in front of me and I sank into the closest bench with a sigh of relief.

It has always been one of my very favorite endroits à Paris. The architecture of the Palais du Louvre is magnificent but so grand as to be overwhelming – that was the point. I think that Henri IV had a far better scheme in building this royal residence, even if he did not live there. I wonder what it could have been like for the court if he had. How they would be able to keep an eye on each other from across the square, what intrigues would be laid out under the vaulted arches. And how lovely it must have looked at night with the hundreds of bougies burning in the multi-paned windows. I can almost hear the click click of 17th century satin shoes sashaying across le parquet…

My reveries were rudely interrupted. It was the lunch break for the nearby college and a group of ten young ados started boisterously competing for a game that might well have been called “impress the tourists.” It wasn’t the only time in the day when I would be surprised by French teenagers acting surprisingly…American. How time passes. Or does it? I looked at the scene in front of me, changing and unchanged from when I first visited so many years ago with my family – when the Marais neighborhood in which it resides was still quite scruffy around the edges – and then yet again when I moved to France to live with Remi in 2001.

How different it was because how different I was as I projected my dreams upon the landscape. Nearly fourteen years ago, I would take the metro directly here as well from our apartment in the suburbs to sit and ponder – despite the enormity of my Love for Remi – the adventure that I had thrown myself into by moving to a foreign country where I had no words, none in French at least, to describe the complexity of what I was feeling. Within the confines of that square, neither too big nor too small and soothingly symmetrical, I felt protected and halted in what at times resembled a free fall into the unknown.

And in 2015? I became so still as to no longer be of interest to the young men jumping from bench to bench until I blended into black and white, a part the scenery. Once so calmed, I took stock and realized that I was contented as well as reassured. My sole agenda was simply to enjoy with something approaching an ironic distance…sans l’amertume. No bitterness or confusion, none at all. My life is elsewhere now and I have the words. I gathered myself around me, tight like a cloak not an armor and with a silent merci let the gate swish shut as I left the Place, moving swiftly on.