Street Art: Lyon

The eyes of Bowie are upon you.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sugar Gets Around: Jardin du Luxembourg

Image
It wasn't long after we hit town in September that we started looking for neighborhoods with good spaces to walk dogs. Turns out, Paris parks are pretty dog-unfriendly. One exception is the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th Arrondissement. Marie de Medici, widow of Henri IV and mother of Louis XIII, added these gardens to her Palais du Luxembourg in 1612--part of which is now given over to dogs and their walkers (tourists and other Parisiens appear to be welcome as well). Le Palais du Luxembourg. Fit for a dog. Disturbingly, like at Ranelagh , the garden depicts yet another act of classical savagery. At la fontaine Médicis, a sculpture shows the giant cyclops Polyphemus moments before descending on lovers Acis and Galatea and crushing the former with a rock. Polyphemus, hanging junk and all, moments before his jealous rampage. Not fit for a dog. It's actually a grand and beautiful sculpture in bronze, stone, and marble. And if you bear any resentment against Polyphemus for destr...
Read more

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Image
The Great God Pan in the 7th Arr. A few years back, I read Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1908) for the first time. I was not surprised that the book was very different than the story told in the 1949 Disney cartoon The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad , which was then my only point of reference. But I was not prepared for chapter 7 , in which Rat and Mole, after searching all night for Otter's lost child, have an eerie encounter with the great god Pan. “Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?” “Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!” Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.  It seems like an odd passage in a children's novel, and Pan doesn't reappear anywhere else in the book. Then again, it may be the key to the entire story, especially if the cover of the book's first edition is any indicati...
Read more

Art Nouveau Fever Dream: 29 Ave. Rapp

Image
Like his contemporary Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte won architecture awards for the Art Nouveau façade of his signature work. But 29 Ave. Rapp in the 7th Arr., designed by Lavirotte in 1900 with extensive ceramic tiling by Alexandre Bigot, makes Guimard's Castel Béranger look like a model of restraint. If Guimard was the Sly and the Family Stone of Art Nouveau, Lavirotte would be Parliament-Funkadelic; maybe not as groundbreaking, but a little funkier and a lot weirder. The Lavirotte building has too much to appreciate in one go--I've been back a few times, and still can't take it all in. In addition to the floral details ubiquitous to Art Nouveau, sculpted bulls and numerous mascarons (both human and vegetable) adorn the façade, while the ironwork includes peacocks, cats stalking birds, and notably, a lizard for the front door handle. According to some, "lézard" used to be French slang for male genitalia. This from a country that takes a rooster for its nation...
Read more