Cycling, Cubism, Computers And Commerce In Paris

I am certainly not the first cyclist to notice that pedaling enhances the senses.  We can see and hear more vividly, and whatever we taste or touch (or touches us) is more intense.  And we all know that our favorite foods and drinks taste even better during and after a ride.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that I found myself thinking about these phenomena as I pedaled around the Place des Vosges and through narrow streets lined with sandstone-colored buildings:  My morning's meanderings ended at la Musee Picasso.

So how are my ramblings and ruminations connected to the creator of Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica?

Well, actually, I started to think about the way we receive sensory details--on or off our bikes--on Saturday, while looking at an exhibit of Cubist painters in the Centre Pompidou.  The way Picasso, Braque and others dissected (visually, anyway), faces, objects and vistas, then re-assembling them in new ways, does not reflect the way our eyes see--or, at any rate, the way we are accustomed to thinking that our eyes see.  Rather, those artists were showing us how something besides our sensory organs--call it the mind, the intuition or the spirit (I mean that in a secular sense.) senses the world around us--which, of course, cannot be a re-creation of the object, the face or whatever we see.  

It makes sense when you realize that the words on this page, or any other words, cannot transmit the things they are supposed to communicate or represent.  All they can do is convey something--a code, if you will-- that the mind turns into an image or idea of whatever the words are supposed to convey.  The mind doesn't do that simply by taking in the sequence of letters that form the word; it turns them into something that the mind or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it, can use to portray an idea or essence of whatever that word is supposed to represent.  If you see the word "house", your mind provides you with an image of a house because it turns the letters of the word into something your mind can re-assemble into a visualization of some house or another.

I am not a neuroscientist, so I have been able to describe our conscious processes only in the language I could find in my own intuition, such as it is.  And I know even less about the way computers process data, so please forgive me if what I say next makes less sense than anything I've said before.

Here goes: It occured to me, while riding afterward, that Cubism may well have been a prototype of how computers process data--and, in particular, how information is conveyed through computer systems and, in particular, across the Internet. As I (mis)understand it, what I am typing right now won't be posted directly to my blog:  It must be changed into a format that can be sent and re-assembled into the intended message or content.  And that format, as I understand it, bears no resemblance (at least in terms of logic or syntax) to the language we use and has to be rearranged in ways we never would (or could) do in order to convey our message.

So..Could the Cubists have been proto-computer scientists?  

Anyway, riding is always a great primer for looking at art, or almost anything.  And within steps, literally, of the Picasso there are two other museums.  I was going to go to the Carnavalet, but it was closed for renovations.  So I went to one I visited on my previous trip to Paris:  the Cognacq-Jay.

Like the Jacqmart-Andre, it was the residence of a wealthy couple who collected art and objects.  The collection was on display, but there was also an interesting exhibit about "l'art du commerce."  It shows how artists like Jean-Antonine Watteau were instrumental in bringing about what we might recognize as marketing in the 18th Century.

The convergence of a few factors made it possible. One was, ahem, colonialism, which gave France and the rest of Europe access to a wider variety of materials--and designs they'd never before seen.  Another was the means to reproduce the exotic objects that came from afar, mainly the Middle and Far East.  Then there was the development of merchant and middle classes --whose tastes and demands drove these new markets--and, last but not least, a group of artists and other creative people.  

This is the era in which, essentially, department stores and catalogues began. That is why artists like Watteau others of his generation were so suited for this development: They had sketch-like techniques developed for creating portraits of  merchants, bankers and other professionals:  the sorts of people (and their families) to whom marketing was directed.  So, in some weird way, you can thank (or blame) Watteau for Amazon--or, if you're of my generation, Bike Nashbar, Performance, Supergo and all of those mail-order shops that sold all of those exotic and unaffordable bikes and parts we couldn't find at our neighborhood Schwinn dealers.

Could it be that the bicycle developed from the draisienne to what we ride today because of the l'art du commerce?

A Bike Ride As Preparation To See A Master

I've known and ridden with cyclists who could or would not ride by themselves.   Whether they went on organized treks with clubs or impromptu sprints with friends and acquaintances, they simply could not conceive of a solo spin down their local streets or in a faraway locale.

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I am not that kind of cyclist.  And I have never been.  Oh, there are times when I like to ride with one other person, or in small groups. (I haven't done a big organized ride like the Five Boro Bike Tour in a long time.)  But I am also content when my ride is simply me, my bike and my surroundings--whether that backdrop is a winding lane in the hills, a road along a seashore or a boulevard in a fashionable (or not-so-fashionable) part of a city.

The last clause in the previous paragraph describes the riding I did this morning.  I rode down arrow-straight residential streets near my hotel to rondeaux at la Place de l'Opera, la Porte de la Vilette (where African immigrants waited for contractors to hire them out as day laborers), la Bastille and la Republique before heading down to the Boulevard Haussmann in the 8th Arrondisssement.  You can't get much more fashionable than that.

I did not, however, go there to be seen--especially being dressed the way I was!  Instead, at the suggestion of Jay and Isabelle, I checked out a museum that I now cannot believe I never entered in my previous visits to (much less in the time I was living in) Paris.  It was like going to la Musee Cognaq-Jay (which I visited two and a half years ago), only on a much bigger and greater scale.

The similarity is this:  the Museum is a mansion , like the Cognaq-Jay, named for the people who lived, and collected art, in it.  Edouard Andre came from a prosperous French Protestant family and developed a love of art.  Nelie Jacquemart, on the other hand, came from a Catholic family of modest circumstances.  She became a painter of some renown who made portraits of some powerful and influential people of her time.  Andre--who was known for his taste as well as his means of acquiring art--commissioned her to do his portrait.

I know this sounds like a period-piece romantic comedy movie script, but they got married.  Whether he was taken by her portrait of him, or she by his taste (which may have included said portrait) was never made clear.  What is known, however, is that they shared a passion for art and artifacts and, never having had any children, spent the rest of their lives travelling to acquire such pieces, and promoting the work of artists and musicians who were their contemporaries.  As a guide said, "They made their lives a work of art."

He died about two decades before she did and he left everything to her with the stipulation that she would be prudent with their heritance.  Her will, in essence, stipulated the creation of the museum.

I can't help but to wonder about the artist who was featured in a special exhibition.  Their collection consisted mainly of late-17th and 18th Century artists, which collectors were starting to favor a century later, during Andre's and Jacquemart's lifetimes.  

The artist featured in the exhibition--which will run for the rest of this month--did this painting:

The man in the picture is with himself, reflecting on the state of his soul.  It's hard to see in this photo, but there is a crucifix in the background which is even hard to see when you are face-to-face with the painting.  And, unlike other portraits of saints, this one has a halo that's barely visible.

One of my regular readers (hint:  he lives in Finland) surely knows the creator of this image.  I am sure that some of my other readers do, too.  For everyone else, I'll tell you his name:  Michelangelo (no, not that one) Merisi, better known as Caravaggio.

Contrary to what you may have heard, he did not invent the "chiaroscuro" technique of painting, in which the subject is set against a dark background, so that there are no "props", if you will, to distract the viewer.  But he probably used it to greater effect than anyone else.  One of the best examples of it, in my opinion, is the painting of St. Francis in meditation I showed above.

Some might opt for this one, of St. Jerome translating the Bible.  I wouldn't try to change their opinion:

or the opinion of anyone who prefers this one, of a young John the Baptist with a ram:

or either of the Mary Magdalen portraits he did:

Somehow, I think he could have done some very interesting portaits of cyclists alone on a mountain pass or the Boulevard Haussmann.

A Market, A Canal, A Church And A Fountain

My bike ride today took me to alternative universes in Paris.  That's what they seemed to be, anyway.

I encountered the first one after riding some side streets near the Place de Clichy, I wandered up some cobblestoned streets (that were really more like lanes) and found myself at the Porte de St. Ouen.

If you are cycling, walking, driving or taking any other kind of ground transportation, you enter or leave the city through those "portes", which are usually passages under the Peripherique, a highway that rings the City of Light. The location of the "portes" are said to approximate the location of openings in the walls that surrounded the city itself and those outlying towns in earlier times.

Anyway, just after passing through the "porte", I saw a sign for "puces".  No, the French highway folks aren't telling you where to find fleas.  Rather, it's shorthand for "flea market" (marche de puces).  So, of course, I followed it.

I hadn't been to the St. Ouen-Paris flea markets in some time. The hyphenated designation isn't just marketing hype:  Although most of the market's stalls are indeed in St.Ouen, a whole section of stalls lies within the Paris city limits.

Notice that I used the plural:  "flea markets".  That's because there are in fact over a dozen different markets, each of them arranged along different streets of the city.  Or, you might say that the markets are like a city of open-air malls.   The only shopping experience that even remotely reminded me of St. Ouen is the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  Of course, they are very different because the GB is covered and, of course, because of the disparate cultures (even if some of the sellers at St. Ouen are Turkish). I don't know which is bigger, but they both dwarf any flea market I've seen elsewhere.

In both places, it's possible to buy just about anything, though there are certainly more antique and vintage-item sellers in St. Ouen than I recall seeing in Istanbul.  But St. Ouen made me think about the term "flea market", which is a direct translation of "marche aux puces". (The French usually call the markets "puces" for short.)  The term is said to have originated because the sellers in the original markets were often homeless, and covered with fleas.  According to what I've read, their practice began in the latter decades of the 19th Century, when much of the city was rebuilt under Baron Haussmann.  (He's the one who replaced the serpentine medieval streets with straight thoroughfares that radiated out from plazas and parks:  Think of the "Etoile" in which the Arc de Triomphe is located.)  As a result of this realignment, many old buildings were torn down, and their contents were left lying  in the streets--where they were scavenged.

Now, I must admit, some things indeed looked as if they were brought in by people (or even dogs or cats) with fleas.  But some other things certainly didn't.

And, while many of the structures that became stalls were old industrial facilites, others looked like they might have given a bourgeois lady or gentleman quite a view.

There are also some interesting contrasts, such as this:

I like it a lot, but it's kind of funny to see the kind of graffiti art you might see in Bushwick or Mott Haven on a building in which old paintings and prints are sold.

Speaking of structures, later in the day, at the other end of town, I encountered a church unlike any I've seen in this city--or anywhere else.

All right, from the outside you might think it's just another late-19th (or early-20th) Century church built in the Romanesque style.  And, in fact,it is, deliberately so:  It was built to replace another church similar in style--on the outside.

Once you get inside, the church still shares some characteristics with other Romanesque churches, including the high, vaulted ceilings--which, of course, are designed to get parishoners to look upward and be reminded of the vast power of God.  But then there's something you've never seen in any other Romanesque church--or, probably, any other church:

Steel girders!  If someone were to build a Romanesque church in Manhattan's Meatpacking District (when it was indeed a district where meat was packed) or Soho (when it was still industrial), I might expect something like this--maybe.

The girders inside the Notre Dame du Travail (Our Lady of Work) were taken from the Palais d'Industrie constructed for the 1855 Universal Exposition and torn down in 1891.  And the stone on the outside was taken from an earlier church that had become too small for the community it was serving.

Even though the city made a rather detailed historical marker for it, and the church offers pamphlets and other materials explaining the church's history, I guess they don't expect tourists to visit, as it is on the far southern end of the city, far from better-known sites.  Thus, the marker and the printed materials are only in French--which, fortunately, I can read, so I was able to write about the church (however sketchily) here. 

Along the way, I made other stops at interesting spots--and for a picnic lunch on the Quai de Jemmapes, by the Canal St. Martin.  And near the end of my ride, I stopped at Place Felix Eboue to hydrate:

Well, if I were my iPhone or laptop, I guess I could have hydrated there.  I enjoyed it nonetheless.  It's different and it's Paris, after all!