Travel another way

Today has been a rainy day so indoor painting for everyone; still life. Everyone painted a bouquet of flowers on top of a wooden chair with a French hat sitting on it. Ok, it is not a real French hat, it is actually Joan’s hat but everyone agreed that the still life with her hat looked very French. Below are a few pictures of our guest painting.

Judy painting

Joan painting

Nancy painting

Anne painting

But France is not only about painting but eating and drinking. Therefore, we went to the Chartreuse cellar, the longest liquor cellar in the world. We learned about the Chartreuse monks making the Chartreuse liquor. We know it is a mix of 150 herbs but they keep the recipe secret. I guess we don’t need to know, as long as it tastes good. They make 9 different types of liquor, from the elixir of long life at 75% alcohol to the fruit liquor at 21%. You can’t find them in the States. You can only find the green Chartreuse (55% alcohol) and the yellow one, called the liquor for ladies, because it is only 41% alcohol. We also got a chance to see the life of the monks in a 3D movie wearing great glasses…. Very good day after all.

Drinking Chartreuse liquor when traveling to France

Watching a 3D movie at the Chartreuse cellar

Stay tuned for more adventure with French Escapade

I am back in France on my first 2010 tour. A painting tour in the foothills of the Alps with art teacher Niki Reynolds.

What a fun group it is! small (5 women) for a lot of fun and laughter. The tour is not only about oil painting even if it is the primary reason for them to join the tour but it is about enjoying each other’s company, French food, French culture and having a good time.

The weather hasn’t been the best it can be. That is the least I can say. It is quite chilly, about 13 degree Celsius (55F), which is usually the weather for March.

That doesn’t stop our guests from painting: if it is too cold outside for some of them, they are painting inside.

Most are beginner painters (Nancy, Anne and Judy) while Joan is an experienced outdoor painter. By the time the beginners finish to set up their easel and paint, Joan has almost finished one painting. Oh well, they found that rather amusing. Me too!!!

Niki is a great teacher. You can check her art on her site at http://nikiparas.com/

She is spending a lot of time helping the newbies. That is the beauty of being in a small group. You get plenty of personal help from the teacher.

On thhe first day, we had a professional chef preparing dinner for us. Not just any chef, but Jean Claude Poulet has been the chef for the Louis Vuiton family. What a treat.

Jean Claude prepared  superb food for us. I didn’t take pictures of everything and I should have.  Below is a picture of him preparing the asparagus as hors d’oeuvres, then a picture of him with the bananas with cinnamon for dessert, a close-up of the banana and finally a picture of our group.

If you want to join one of our painting tours in 2011, make sure to check www.frenchescapade.com

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Jackie

Best,

Designer Christian Lacroix was born in 1951 in Arles, Provence, and his fashion shows and collections were often inspired by Camargue colors, gypsies and corridas.

He opened his own fashion design business in 1987, sponsored by French luxury company Louis Vuiton Moet Hennessy. He became internationally successful right away, and later diversified his business by creating a line of perfume, linen, table ware and accessories. He even participated in designing of the interior of the Mediterranean TGV.

However , financial difficulties appeared in 2005, and today, the company was officially closed when no potential buyer showed up to make an offer to buy the famous brand name.

                                                                               Views of Cannes and Festival Award

From May 13 to 24, international film stars will take over the glamorous Mediterranean resort  where they will meet in the prestigious Palais du Festival but mainly in lavish parties in the luxurious hotels .

It all started in 1946, and the first selection included Billy Wilder’s “Lost Weekend”, David Lean’s “Brief Encounter”, Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome Open City”, George Cukor’s “Gaslight”, Walt Disney’s “Make Mine Music”, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious”, and Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast”.

This year’s  jury will be headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert, only the 4th woman to hold the presidency for over 6 decades.

                                           Isabelle Huppert holding the Cannes Festival Palm Award

Here is the official selection of the movies in competition:

• “A prophet”, France, Jacques Audiard
• “Agora”, Spain, Alejandro Amenabar
• “Antichrist”, Sweden/ Denmark/ France / Italy, Lars Von Trier
• “Bright Stars”, Australia, Jane Campion
• “Broken Embrace”, Spain, Pedro Almodovar
• “Enter the void”, France, Gaspar Noe
• “Face”, France/ Taiwan/ Netherlands/  Belgium, Tsai Ming-liang
• “Fishtank”, UK/ Netherlands, Andrea Arnold
• “In the beginning”, France, Xavier Giannoli
• “Inglorious Basterds”, USA, Quentin Tarantino
• “Kinatay”, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
• “Les herbes folles”, France/ Italy, Alain Resnais
• “Looking for Eric”, UK/ France/ Belgium/ Italy, Ken Loach
• “Maps of the sound of Tokyo”, Spain, Isabel Coixet
• “Spring Fever”, China/ France, Lou Ye
• “Taking Woodstock”, USA, Ang Lee
• “The times that remains”, Israel/ France/ Belgium/ Italy, Elia Suleiman
• “The whit ribbon”, Germany/ Austria/ France, Michael Haneke
• “Thirst”, South Korea, Park Chan-Wook
• “Vengeance”, Hong Kong France/ USA, Johnnie To
• “Vincere’, Italy / France, Marco Bellochio

Pixar 3-D movie UP will open the festival on May 13th, an unusual event as it will be the first time an animated movie will be shown for the opening. The results will be anounced in the evening of May 24th.

Video introducing the 2009 festival/ Film samples /In French with some English

                           Jackie, your travel guide and specialist about Belgium, France and California

                                                                         (see bottom  of article for latest trip discounts)

• The new Magritte museum is opening soon! On June 2, its doors will open on the magic world of the most famous Belgian surrealist painter. Located next to the Art Museum on Place Royale in Brussels, and not to be confused with the former Magritte museum, located in the painter’s home. While the old one focuses on the artist’s life, the new one will exhibit some 170 paintings by Magritte. Not to be missed! Tickets are for sale online.

• The royal greenhouse of Laeken are only open to the public in spring. This year, you will be able to admire the huge collection of rare plants in the superb 19th century greenhouses designed by Balat from Friday, April 17 to May 10 (closed on Mondays). It is a short window and therefore a privilege to enter this magical  space located in the King’ s palace gardens.

• The Foundation for Architecture is presenting its 2009 exhibition " the Time of the Boutiques" , from booths to ebay, ongoing until October 18, 2009. You will be immersed in the experience of window-shopping through ages. The foundation is located rue de l’ Hermitage, 105 – Brussels 1050. Closed on Mondays.

• On Saturday, May 16, 2009, you will be able to join the Belgian Gay Pride March in Brussels, with around 20,000 people walking the Streets of the Belgian capital. The parade is free and starts at 2 pm at the Bourse. It will end with the Rainbow Party at the Ancienne Belgique.

• Brussels public transportation are varied and convenient: 5 train stations, an easy train access to the airport and a great subway network in addition to a large bus and tram network. On April 4 , 2009, new metro lines were added.

Practical info: the Brussels subways (Metro)  run from 5am to 1am / Trains are every 7 minutes / a single ticket costs 1.70 euros  and a Day pass 4.50 euros / a 3-Day pass 9.50 euros.

To and from the airport, trains run every 15 minutes (Central station, Bruxelles Midi, Airport station located  in the basement – level – 1)

And because Belgians are unpredictable, watch this video taken at the Antwerp train station on March 23.  Public transport can be art!"

So to all of you who will be in Belgium this spring, enjoy!

If you want to join us on our August tour of Belgium with a special 50% off discount, check our website www.frenchescapade.com . It is a women-only 8-day trip in Wallonia and the  Flanders in a small group of 8, escorted by bilingual guides with a real knowledge of the country. I will be there!

All pictures were taken on French Escapade tours in Belgium.

Belgium is a land of painters. Famous artists  (Bruegel, Van Eyck, Rubens, Memling, James Ensor, Magritte…) are Belgian. Here are 3 different cities to illustrate 3 painting styles.

BRUGES AND THE FLEMISH PRIMITIVES

The technique of the oil painting was invented in Bruges, the romantic  Belgian  town built on the water, where many artists lived in the heart of the wealthiest 15th century communauty.

Bruges is associated to the Flemish Primitives (such as Van Eyck) which refer to the painting school and the painting style of the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium) in the 15th century. The name only started to be used in the 19th century. The name ‘Flemish’ (adjective for Flanders, the area running from Northern France to the Southern Netherlands) is used to cover the entire group of 15th century painters living in Bruges and its surrounding area. The word Primitive only mean they were the first to use new painting techniques, which were far from being primitive!

• In Bruge, visit the Groeninge Museum, with its collection of paintings from the 14th to the 20 th century (mainly by artists who lived in the Bruges area ) : Van Eyck, Memling, Pieter Bruegel…

    Horse carriage in Bruges  by Sonja Hamilton                          Medieval houses by canals in Bruges

© Photo Credit: Painting by Sonja Hamilton SWA

OSTENDE AND MODERN PRECURSOR JAMES ENSOR

Ostende was the Queen of the Belgian seashore resorts in the second half  of the 19th century. King Leopold II transformed the little fisherman port into a prestigious aristocratic town – eclectic and cosmopolitan.

Marine painters found there a perfect subject for their plein air vignettes.

However, Ostende is mainly associated to James Ensor, the impressionist painter who dared to use avant-garde expressionist effects in his work, which resulted in the fact that he was never well-accepted during his lifetime. He also enjoyed depicting his contemporaries in a very critical way (grotesque masks, snares …) which alienated him from the general public. He is now seen as a major precursor of modern painting and his work is displayed in major museums (Getty museum of California for instance).

• In Ostende, visit the James Ensor House; it does not contain any of his work but it shows the  bizarre   environment in which Ensor lived and worked for the last 32 years of his life. The place is crammed with objects he used as models in his colorful paintings.

BRUSSELS AND SURREALIST MAGRITTE

Brussels is an art laboratory. While walking around the city, you are constantly facing architectural splendors (sometimes horrors, I have to admit): Art Nouveau buildings, medieval shops, gothic facades , next to the ugliest 20th century condominums or the impressive glass building of the European Parliament. The king Palace is neo-classic but the nearby cafés and restaurants boast the most high-tech deco ! To put it in a nutshell, Belgian are daring and crazy when it comes to architecture.

As for painting, you do not need to enter a museum to admire beautiful murals: the city is the capital of comic strips, and you will meet many comic heroes on the walls of Brussels

But if you are not keen on Comics, and do not wish to visit the Comic Strip center, Brussels has many art museums, and the New Magritte museum is to open on June 2, 2009; you can also visit the old Rene Magritte museum (his house in Brussels) which is a different museum.

For more Magritte information, read our previous article dated January 5, 2009.

Painting tours and cultural tours are offered in these three cities with French Escapade.

Links (click on title):

• Painting tours and cultural tours in Belgium 
• Artists giving painting workshops in Belgium: Sonja Hamilton, Sandy Delehanty.
• More information about the Flemish Primitives
• Facebook Magritte Fan Page

Videos (click on title):

• Van Eyck, slide show
• Theo Van Rysselberghe, Belgian pointillist painter (slide show)
• Leon Spilliaert, “Silences”, movie about Spilliaert’s paintings in Ostende (movie)
• René Magritte, slide show
• The dreamer, a tribute to René Magritte, animated film.

The Castro Theatre was built in 1910, and originally  located at 479 Castro Street . In the mid 1920s, a  larger Castro Theater was built at 429 Castro Street, its current location, only a few doors up from the original theatre. Its facade was ornated in the   Spanish Colonial Baroque style , just like the basilica in Mission Dolores.

The architect in charge was Timothy L.Pflueger who also worked on Oakland’s Paramount theater, among others.

It officially opened to the public on 23 June 1922, showing the Paramount release Across the Continent (1922), starring Wallace Reid.

Today, movies are still played at the Castro theater, but special events are real treats, such as sing-alongs , festivals and concerts, as well as charity events that are taking place there from time to time. The interior decoration and the Wurlitzer pipe organ  played on special events give the whole atmosphere an exquisite ambiance and make you travel back in time.

In January 2008, when Gus Van Sant shot his movie Milk, dedicated to the memory of Harvey Milk, assassinated in San Francisco in  , the neon lights were renovated on the theater’s marquee , and the facade  repainted.

Yearly  events:

• Noir City: the Film Noir festival(Jan-Feb)
• San Francisco International film festival (Ap-May)
• the Asian American film festival (March)
• Berlin and beyond: German film festival (Jan)
• San Francisco Jewish festival (Feb)
• Shock it to me:  Classic horror film festival ( Oct)
• and more….

Current programming:

• Noir City 7 (black and white movies)

Coming soon:

• February 6: Midnites for Maniacs
• February 7: Scary Cow Festival
• February 15-26: Milk
• February 27-March 5: Amarcord
• March 23: Petula Clark
• April 8 – 13: Mamamia sing-long (I’ll be there ! I love sing-alongs and Abba! What a treat!)

For more details, visit http://www.castrotheatre.com/index.html

Videos:

• Interviews for the 85th anniversary of the theater
• The Wurlitzer pipe organ 

Provence is the perfect inspiration for many painters. If Cezanne  and Van Gogh are the first names you would associate with the South of France, Picasso was not indifferent to its charms and spent a lot of time in Provence and the French Riviera..

In the beginning, the Spanish painter would often visit friends in the area before he eventually moved  there,  where he  painted some majors works inspired by the spirit of the place.

Here are his Provence landmarks:

• In 1912, he stayed with Braque in Sorgue near Avignon and painted “L’Arlésienne”
• In Vence , he would often meet Matisse
• In Saint Tropez,  he drew the “Odalisque” sketch
• In 1919, he stayed in Saint Raphaël for a while.
• In 1923 and 1924, Cap d’Antibes and Juan les Pins were his summer destinations, where he painted “Paul as Arlequin”
• In 1939, he spent some time at Man Ray’s home in Antibes and painted ” Antibes port at night”
• In 1946, he stayed in Menerbes , the village made famous by Peter Mayle’s books.
• In 1948, in Vallauris, he discovered the art of ceramics 
• In 1955, he moved to Cannes. There, he worked on his series “les Ménines” and also did  “Peace and War “ 
• In Les Baux de Provence, he acted in a Cocteau movie.
• In 1960, he finally moved  to Mougins, his last residence, near Aix en Provence, where he could see Cezanne’s dear Mont Saint Victoire. He died therenin 1973.
• He is burried in the park at his Vauvenargues Castle, in Mougins.

After the extremely successful “Picasso and the masters” exhibit  this fall in Paris,  mentioned on this blog on November 25, 2008, Provence will celebrate Picasso in 2009.

Here are the major events:

• May 25 – September 27: Picasso – Cezanne exhibit at Musée Granet in Aix en Provence
• May 27 – September 25: temporary opening of Vauvenargues Castle (reservations required)
• March 28 – June 28: Picasso 1945-1949 exhibit, 200 pieces from the Happy Years, at the Picasso Museum of Antibes .
• Starting February 29: the Cathedral of images in les Baux de Provence will project Picasso’s  works in the amazing quarry used as an exhibition room. Always a superb experience!

Both our regular tours and painting trips in Provence include Les Baux de Provence, Menerbes, Avignon, the Cathedral of Images and Sorgues.

Our painting teachers in Provence; For 2009: Jann Pollard; in 2010 Victoria Brooks

Poster for the new show at the Cathedral of Images, Les Baux de Provence.

Painters and art lovers                can discover                   Provence                    through           art, gastronomy     and painting workshops               organized by          French Escapade.

In 1929, the most celebrated surrealist Belgian painter wrote this caption on his oil painting representing a pipe, and called his piece: “the Betrayal of Images”.

His name? René Magritte.

On June 2, 2009 , Brussels will open a new Magritte Museum. Located by the Art museum on Place Royale, within walking distance from the famous Grand Place,  the museum will hold 200 works, the largest collection of Magritte paintings, plus archival material, letters written by the painter, photographs and drawings.

Born in 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, Magritte firts studied art at the Belgian  Academy of Fine arts. He later met  the French and Spanish surrealists in Paris in the 20s and  joined their cultural and political movement . His first American exhibit was organized in New York in 1936, but he  only set foot in the States  in 1965, for a retrospective of his works at the Chicago MOMA. Magritte died in 1967 in Brussels.

Inspired by both the bizarre and the absurd, Magritte evokes a wide spectrum of themes to entice the observer.

Visits of the museum are available on French Escapade tours to Belgium in 2009: August 22-29 (Cultural tour), August 14- 21 and September 5-12 (Painting tours).

Useful links for Magritte in Brussels

• http://www.visitbelgium.com/mediaroom/NewMagritteMuseumBrussels.htm Future Magritte museum to open in June.
• http://www.magrittemuseum.be/   Present Magritte museum in Brussels

Illustration 1: the new Magritte Museum in Brussels

Illustration 2: Oil on canvas from http://www.lacma.org/

Photos of the Great Synagogue of Brussels,  posted with the kind authorization of the Jewish Consistory of Belgium  http://www.jewishcom.be/FR/comm_bruxelles.html

As the Jewish community is about to celebrate Hanukkah on Dec.21 all over the world, let’s take some time to visit the Jewish Brussels  .

Jews settled in Belgium between the 13th and 15th centuries., after being expelled from France, England, Spain and Portugal. In the Lowlands, especially in Antwerp, the Jewish community played an important economic and financial role.

When Belgium beame a country in 1831, the new regime recognized judaism as an official religion. By the end of the 19th century, both Sephardic and Ashkenazic jews were well implanted in the country. In 1939, an estimated 65,000 jews lived in Belgium, mainly in Brussels. After WWII, 40,000 had perished under the nazi regime.

Today, the Jewish community is about42,000, the majority living in Brussels and Antwerp. Belgium is the 4th largest community in Europe.

Jewish Landmarks in Brussels:

• The Belgian Jewish Museum http://www.new.mjb-jmb.org/
• The Great Synagogue. Built in 1878, it was not destroyed during WWII. Located 32 rue de la Regence, Brussels
• The Liberal Synagogue (Reform) : many Americans attend services there (96 avenue de Kersbeek, a 20-minute taxi ride from downtown)
• The National Monument to the Jewish Martyrs of Belgium. An  impressive monument with 23, 838 names located in the district of Anderlecht.

            http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/photos/bruss2/bruss203.htm

• The International Jewish Center organizes cultural and religious activities in English .   http://www.ijc.be/ 

Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish friends!

If you are not afraid of the freezing winter gales that will blow in the Parisian streets this December, and have decided to travel to France in the coming weeks, it will be nice to take shelter in some of the warm places that host great exhibits this winter. Here are my suggestions:

• Picasso and the Masters: 210 works by Picasso, Velasquez, El Greco, Goya, Gauguin , Cezanne… at the Grand Palais until Feb. 2, 2009 .

www.grandpalais.fr/./en/Homepage/p-617-Homepage.htm

• From Miro to Warhol: the Berardo Collection at  Musée du Luxembourg until Feb. 22, 2009

www.museeduluxembourg.fr

• Picasso and Manet at the Orsay museum until Feb. 1, 2009

www.musee-orsay.fr

• Jeff Koons in Versailles until Dec. 14, 2009

www.jeffkoonsversailles.com

Picture1: Eiffel Tower, Paris from www.freefote.com

Picture 2: the Grand Palais Glass Dome from www.grandpalais.com

Picture 3: Versailles gardens from www.bigfoto.com

Still from Joan’s diary, one of our guests on our tours for women to Provence.

Cathedrale D’Images is one of the most incredible things I have seen and I can only hope to describe this with some accuracy. We drove about 40 min through the town of St. Remy to the village of Chateau des Baux. Another medieval hilltop village built in stone surrounding a huge castle. This area is very rocky, there are enormous cliffs of solid rock.  Very close by (15 min walk) there is  a quarry that excavated the stone for about 100 years. The remains of the quarry include a vast stone ‘cave’ dug into the hillside. This site has been transformed into Cathedral D’Images. (Google it!)

The walls of the cave are enormous, 50 feet tall. You enter into the dark cave and upon these massive walls are projected images of Van Gogh’s art and some background on the artist. This is all set to dramatic classical music. On one wall you see a self portrait of Van Gogh (20′x30′), on the adjoining wall is a close up of his eyes, 30′x40′. Then the images change to the days when he painted in Provence. And then to his tormented final days in Auvers. 

There were images projected on close to 25 walls, plus some on the floor, all of it on a very large scale. Between the images and the dramatic music you get sensation of being in the paintings. It is truly remarkable and quite  moving. It gave me goosebumps. Joan D., San Jose California