Nice was a charming resort city. Even at the beginning of May, we noticed the sunbathers slowly coming south, though the beaches directly in Nice are quite pebbly. We visited 3 museums the first day - the first was the Modern Art museum, which was beautifully-constructed, with a cool circular design. We walked through the rooftop gardens and displays and looked down into the empty middle of the museum. During our visit, our art history professor mostly focused on discussing Yves Klein, who developed a special color blue with a chemist and began using it in all of his work. He had several canvases painted simply with this incredibly vibrant color, which was such a dark bright blue it was practically purple.
He painted naked women with this color and had them lay down on his canvases - some of his paintings had these torso imprints of the women, which then smeared off into the side of the canvas, making it look like a mermaid's bodystain.
And here's another one I liked.
This blue was so...engaging. It sucks you in. We talked about whether this was art - this scientific process of choosing the right chemicals to create this perfect blue. He painted the canvas just plain blue to raise the same questions as Man Ray and others were asking - what makes art art? Why can't a urinal be art? Why can't the intention behind my art be to question art itself? Does it have to be beautiful or can it just make you think, to be art? And so on.
The second museum we visited that first day in Nice was the Matisse museum. Jerome, our art prof, was very funny - it was the first time that he wasn't our group's official tour guide, and though he let the young women who led us around speak mostly without interruption, he would correct her once in a while, or, it seemed, test her to make sure she actually knew her stuff. I love Matisse. He has such graceful, simple lines. I prefer these simple sketches to his other work, but everything he did was incredible. I can't believe how one man can go through so many artistic phases in one lifetime. What a guy.
Then we went to the Chagall museum. I love Chagall. By the way, this was my favorite museum day of my whole time in Paris - cool modern art and then two of my absolute favorites, one right after the other. The Chagall museum was a mix of his religious art and his romantic art - one of the rooms was dedicated to his wife. I was really surprised to see, in one of his triptychs, an image of Jesus on the cross, with a rabbi beneath him, holding a Torah and wearing a tallis. I had never seen a painting of Jesus so obviously associated with Judaism. His other religious art recounted stories from the Old and New Testaments. This was one of my favorites - Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Good day in Nice! The other days we spent traveling around to different towns around Nice, looking at several modern art institutes, private studios, and galleries. In Vence, we saw Matisse's chapel, which he designed for the nurse who took care of him in his old age. This was a chapel unlike any other I had ever seen. His art was so simple - a few brush-strokes on tile, a very informal, not overwhelming, but very down-to-earth kind of religious place. Matisse was never that religious, really, so he painted an enormous Mary and Jesus, which looked very much like any mother and child - an image anyone could connect to.
The windows, which he also designed, were gorgeous.
The nun who gave a short speech about the chapel explained that he designed the blue and yellow windows in such a way so that the light that came through the stained glass would filter into violet. It worked. The windows look rather simple, but Matisse obviously put a lot of thought into them.
The sister giving the speech was very feisty. One of the men in the room, who obviously couldn't understand her all-in-French presentation, hadn't turned off his cell phone, and it began ringing during her explanation. She immediately stopped speaking, turned to him, and told him to shut it off. He kept trying and failing, and she shook her head at him and waited the noisy 2 minutes for him to figure out his phone. She tapped her foot impatiently and we all knew right away that should that happen again, and to one of us, we too would get that disapproving look and sharp remark. What a lady. Probably 70 yrs old.
After the chapel, we visited the little town of Vence, which was simply gorgeous - what you would expect a small town in the South of France to be. Windy, hilly roads, cobblestone streets, low arches, flowers everywhere, cats running about, friendly people. It was lovely.
The next day we went to the market, picked up some food for a picnic lunch and went on a hike in the foothills of the Alps, right near the town of Tourettes-sur-Loup. After hiking in the real, Swiss Alps here in Switzerland, I realize that it wasn't much of an intense hike. At the time, however, it felt like we were champions of the mountains. It was a hot day, too. Pictures prove that we were SWEATY once we got to the top. What I'll remember from that day is our art professor wrapping his dirty white tshirt around his head like a turban, and the incredible picnic lunch that I shared with Stephanie. I almost died finishing the hike because I was so full, but it was worth it. We bought fresh cherry tomatoes, apricots, 2 types of goat cheese, a baguette, and olive bread. We had to make other people finish our cheese because we simply couldn't, but I will remember, FOREVER, those perfect cherry tomatoes with spiky bottoms. Look!
We did other things on the trip :
- had an INCREDIBLE group dinner (most gourmet food I had the entire trip) in another town along the sea, whose name I've now forgotten
- discovered an ice cream place in Nice that served basil, tomato, olive, violet, and lavender ice cream (among others)
- had two hours to explore Monaco (which is more than enough - I must say Monaco is extremely boring - YACHTS YACHTS RICH PEOPLE YACHTS SOUVENIRS YACHTS. It's just a principality, after all. Royalty and a beautiful view of the sea!)
- tasted sugared violets, a regional specialty, in another small town
More than anything, this 5-day trip was a realization for me, though a somewhat late one, that France does not equal Paris. Paris does not equal France. Somehow, I think that we in the states forget that there is a lot more to France than just its famous capitol. I loved seeing what I thought was very authentic Southern France - the coziness of the small towns, the warmth of the people (and the weather). The completely different ambiance there really engaged me, and has made me want to go back to France to explore the other parts of the country that I've never really made time for even consdering. So there you have it. (I want to go to Montpelier, Avignon, and Marseille, to start. They'll be on my never-ending "to-visit" list.)
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