Last weekend I had the immense pleasure of visiting Giverny to experience the house and gardens of Monet. The grounds were an orgy to the senses, the explosions of color and perfumes of the flowers. Escaping the crowds, we found the Ancient Restaurant Baudy Hotel, the famous hotel that became an artists' colony in the late 1800's. Baudy was the "American painters' hotel" where everyone would dance the night sipping their whiskey. The bill that Cezanne paid at the bar is well know: "Mister Cezanne, two whiskies with Mister Monet". The artists' studio is still in the garden, open tubes and pigments well aged, and dirty palates that I had the urge to take and clean! The first two photos above were taken at the gardens there.
The next day we found ourselves rather by accident at the medieval town of Senlis, after a fabulous lunch we wandered the town and entered the cathedral. All three of us were rooted to the floor when we looked way up and saw the Virgin and Child surrounded by plain colored stonework while she herself was swathed in bright orange! I've never seen orange on the Virgin Mary, mostly because orange is the color of sex and creativity, and happens to be one of my favorite colors, partly for that reason but also because it looks good on me (see photo from just the previous day)! Not a color associated with virgins, another reason its a favorite!
I think the sculptor had the last laugh on someone a few centuries earlier!
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