On My Bookshelf: Émile Zola’s Le Ventre de Paris
Art is quite a subject; sometimes, looking at it is just not enough. That, in turn, inspires people to write about it, to express the overwhelming grandeur of visual creation. That writing can take the...
View ArticleOn My Bookshelf: Abdelkader Djemaï’s Zorah sur la terrasse
I read a book recently that’s worth sharing: Abdelkader Djemaï’s Zorah sur la terrasse: Matisse à Tanger, published in Paris in 2010. This slight novella, in the form of a lengthy letter the...
View ArticleOn My Bookshelf: Julie Birmant & Clément Oubrerie’s Pablo, 2. Apollinaire
The tagline reads “When Picasso was 20.” The back cover promises (my translation from the French): Montmartre, 1905: Picasso’s gang is making modern art. They aren’t well-loved, but that won’t last...
View ArticleOn My Bookshelf: Madame de Staël’s Corinne ou l’Italie
I’m currently reading Madame de Staël ’s 1807 novel Corinne ou l’Italie. Included among the writer’s opinions on the differences marking European nations at the dawn of the 19th century are reflections...
View ArticleOn My Bookshelf: Relire Hopper
First, I’ll start with a confession. I missed it, I skipped Paris’s biggest winter exhibition, the retrospective Edward Hopper at the Grand Palais. The three-hour-long lines were just too discouraging....
View ArticleViewing from afar: “Balzac, vu d’ailleurs”
The exposition is just as much about discovering Taiwan as it is about rereading La Comédie humaine. The exoticism of the works testifies to Balzac’s universality as these young people don’t identify...
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