“We saw the Mona Lisa yesterday.”
“The what?”
The French call it La Joconde. It’s a neat fact that may make you fun (to avoid) at parties, but it gave me a wake up call. It reminded me that the hisory we know is taught differently in other cultures. It also foreshadows how differently the French interpret art than the United States.
When I came to France, I expected to go to the Louvre no matter the cost. What I didn’t expect that the cost is €0. That’s right, and so is nearly every other museum of Paris if you are an EU resident under 26. The French student visa serves as a French residence permit.
The Mona Lisa is cool, but the Louvre is filled with art from floor to ceiling as well as historical facts from all eras. What else would you expect from the world’s largest museum? But there’s also the Orsay, Orangerie, Marmottan, Cluny, and more. The sheer quantity of art from all sorts of cultures, in that Parisian harmony of local and exotic, caught me off guard. I’ve never seen so much art in my life, let alone from one city. It was proof of how far monarchies and imperialism could recah around the world, for better or worse. It made world history seem so long as to feel infinite.
Did I say “infinite”? I didn’t even touch the subject of all the other art in Paris. Throughout Paris you can find entire neighborhoods of galleries, manned with one-of-a-kind pieces and captained by an artist building his legacy. It reminds us that the art we put on a pedestal comes from somewhere. It also made me mentally backtrack and consider how the art in the museums come from various classes and reputations. As another example, despite all the royally commisisioned paintings in the Louvre, van Gogh, whose name is more known than nearly all of them, lies with the locals in Auvers-sur-Oise, a 30 minute drive from Cergy.
You can also find art outside of paintings. The Saint-Ouen flea market is lined with blocks of paintings, couches, furniture, and other housewares. They are absolute centerpieces, even compared to most of the established art of the Parisian museums. Outside of Paris, even one-train-stop towns have a “boulangerie” or “patisserie” serving housemade bread and pastries respectively. The way these are put together is like art in itself
That’s how I knew I ended up somewhere different. Where most see a place to stare, sell, or eat, the French find a place to make. With my computer engineering major and product design certificate, I’m now wondering how I can find the art and the craftsmanship in whatever I may invent or contribute to in the future.