Fontainebleau and Impressionism

Day #5 of the excursion marked our transition from the chateau and the Renaissance towards Impressionism. We started off in the morning with our last chateau, number six, Fontainebleau. For me, this was the most impressive. In Peter's words, "it gives Versailles a run for its money." Walking through room after room covered in gold-gilted everything, tapestries, luscious fabrics, and Sevres china, I suddenly had an acute understanding of why the French Revolution happened. And I was not the only one to reach that conclusion. That level of oppulence makes the colonists' complaints about Tea Taxes look like whining. But I couldn't help but admire the sheer amount of art work and talent displayed. It's certainly worth seeing, if only for the shock factor. Another reason this chateau seemed so much more excessive than the earlier ones is that it is outfitted in a different style. It was the palace of Napoleon I, and thus the decorations date from an earlier time period and are slightly more recognizable as flagrant displays of wealth. That, and there's gold everywhere, which was not the case in any of the other chateau we visited. The picture on the left is of the queen's bedchamber.

Oh, I almost forgot, before we toured the chateau we had lunch at a cafe in Fontainebleau. There we had the worst service I have seen so far in France. There were 10 of us (nine students plus Dr. Barbour, our chauffeur Stephan was not with us at this point) and we sat down and ordered at 1:15pm. We all got cafe food - salads, two hamburgers, a "Pomme Cheese" (explanation to follow, picture at right), and a pizza. 40 minutes later the first four salads arrived. Another 10 minutes later the Pomme Cheese, a hamburger, and another two salads arrived. Another 20 minutes later, Mary-Kate and I had yet to receive our respective hamburger and pizza. We had reminded the server a few times that we were waiting on some items, but it was only over an hour after we had ordered that she realized the kitchen had forgotten our two items. Like I said, this is the first time something like this has happened. Normally service is prompt, especially for simple stuff of the variety we ordered. Three course meals are normally more like an hour and a half for lunch and two plus hours for dinner, but that's what we expect. Normally those are more complicated dishes too. So needless to say, we're not going back to the Cafe Churchill again. But the upside is that I got to try Dr. Barbour's "Pomme Cheese" which was the French equivalent of a stuffed baked potato. It was two halves of a baked potato, covered in crème fraiche (similar to sour cream) and chives and topped with melted cheese. I wish I could remember the name of the cheese, but it is escaping me now. Anyway, it was very tasty. My pizza "Napoleon" was an interesting concept, but not very well executed. It had the standard crust-sauce-cheese and then mushrooms, prosciutto ham, olives, and an egg over easy in the center. The flavors worked well together, but the crust had a lingering burnt taste (as if the stone it was cooked on wasn't clean), so I think it could have been better.

So then after Fontainebleau we transitioned towards the Impressionism section. We went to a museum called Musee Ganne which is located in the building where there used to be an auberge (hostel/inn). It was at this auberge that certain artists went to escape the official "Empire-approved" art of Napoleon's regime and wanted to paint natural landscapes. It was called the Barbizon school and they were the forerunners of the Impressionists. *The picture on the right is the inside of the auberge, note the cabinet doors are painted - apparently they practiced on all of the surfaces inside - walls, cabinets, etc).* It's kind of funny to think that once this auberge was out in the woods, but now there's a street running right in front of it. It's not a big town, but it's definitely not in the countryside. I think it's awesome that although this class with Dr. Barbour is not conventional because it lacks a classroom setting, I am still learning so much! Not only so many facts, but realizing so many connections between art and history and politics. It's so cool that we're doing all of these things chronologically, as if we are following history as it unfolded. Our five days in Paris will be the culmination of this chronological history - between the monuments and museums there we will study up through the present day. Of course, once we get back to Dijon we'll be taking an art history course with Mr. Tomarchio (I spelled it phonetically, I'll get back to you on that). He joined us for these last few days to help give more insight into the history of Impressionism. But it's so cool to see these things in context.

That night (Friday and Saturday night) we stayed in a hotel called Villa des Impressionistes in a small town called Bougival, a little ways outside of Paris. This hotel was another three star and I could really tell the difference. I roomed with Kara and Jenn in a triple and our room had two floors! I got a big queen-sized bed all to myself on the first floor.