Multishadows in Paris

These shadows are cast on our hall wall by the setting sun reflected from the multiple windows of a high building in Paris's Chinatown (probably the one reflecting the sun in this blip from two days ago--they were about five minutes apart). The reflected rays come through the kitchen into the hall, and I'm standing less than two meters away in the door to the kitchen. Edit: The geometrical gradations of tone are reminiscent of Josef Albers' (1888-1976) series, Homage to the Square, consisting of colored squares nesting in one another.

I've added this to my shadows series --which started in Northampton but has many added since from Paris.

Our friends Nine and Didier stayed two days and left this morning (I mentioned them yesterday, but didn't link then.

We've been to several good exhibitions this week, starting Monday at the Pompidou Center with modernist French photographs from 1920-50--not many familiar names but many themes that have caught on since. I'm sure that my blip from today would have fitted in very well.

Yesterday found us at the Manufacture des Goblins, where the French have produced huge (wall-sized) tapestries since the 17th centuries. They had mounted an exhibition of tapestries on the story of Moses based on paintings by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). Twenty years after his death the authorities decided to produce a series of 8 tapestries done by him decades earlier, in part to reinforce his renown as equal to Italian artists such as Raphael.

The afternoon story is shorter: An exhibition of photographs by the Mexican Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1902-2002) at the Jeu de Paume--it has become in a real sense Paris's temple of photography--I can no longer count the good exhibitions I've seen there, and this one was right up there. I've known of Alvarez Bravo for years, but never seen more than a few of his images at once; seeing over 100 was wonderful.