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By Barbara Redmond

Barbara Redmond

When I am in Paris I sketch and paint with a theme in mind. I travel to Paris every chance I get and have sketched a lot along the way. I’ve gone alone, I’ve gone with a single companion, I’ve gone with family. I’ve stayed in hotels and apartments, shopped in boutiques and markets, walked miles, made friends, eaten all kinds of food in all kinds of venues, visited museums and busy tourist sites, and made personal pilgrimages to obscure places.

In Paris I sketch and paint. I arrive in the city with a theme in mind. A single theme that I study for months in advance of my arrival.

The Opera Carmen

My first theme, several years ago, was the opera Carmen, by the French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875). Six months prior to my trip, I had attended an avant-garde theater performance of Carmen by Theater de le Jeune Lune in Minneapolis. In the story, a soldier falls in love with a beautiful girl who works in a cigarette factory. Carmen, however, does not reciprocate the soldier’s love. The Jeune Lune’s portrayal of Carmen, the opera’s gypsy heroine, was of an intelligent, yet fragile, teenager who used her own cleverness for day-to-day survival but never did any real harm. This young Carmen convinced me there was something not right about the traditional American staging of the opera Carmen.

Barbara Redmond

After listening to several recordings of Carmen, I began my research by reading the book Georges Bizet Carmen, by Susan McClary. I was fascinated by the musical codes that were developed to represent the power of Carmen and those of her lover, Don José, whose musical key was shifted down to match hers.

The story of Carmen

Next came the novella, Carmen and Other Stories, by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, upon which the libretto is based. Merimée’s Carmen was very young, intelligent and spoke several languages. His Carmen lived by her wits and charm, similar to the Jeune Lune’s version. Merimée’s version of Don José, in contrast, was a murderer and is not the character we’ve grown accustomed to in traditional interpretations of Carmen.

19th Century French art―Romanticism, Orientalism

I studied nineteenth century French art and the elements of Romanticism, Orientalism, Egyptian motifs, the wild landscape, and the tragic anti-hero. Carmen, as the outsider, was a perfect fit in my study of Orientalism and the tragic anti-hero. Four films based on the opera closed my study: Carmen Jones and the versions of Carmen by Peter Brook, Francesco Rosi, and my favorite, Carlos Saura’s flamenco Carmen.

Sketching and painting in Paris

Barbara Redmond

In my carry-on bag was make-up, a change of clothes to slip into before I left the airport, and my two-week itinerary of my day-to-day schedule: museum sketching in the mornings and neighborhood sketching in the afternoon and evening. If my checked bag of papers, pens, and tubes of paint were lost in transit, I could stop to fill my sac from my favorite art supply store near Musée d’Orsay; Couleurs du Quai Voltaire (Paris depuis 1887).

When the doors to Musée du Louvre opened, I was there. I was there to see two paintings. The first was Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ (1780-1867) Une Odalisque (1814) of a “harem woman,” whose accessories suggest the sensuous Orient―conjuring up an image of a distant land. The second painting, also by Ingres, was The Bather, known as the Valpinçon Bather (1862) of a nude as seen from behind.

The next day I was at Musée d’Orsay to study the wild landscape painting of Édouard Manet’s (1832-1883) Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (1863) of two clothed men having a picnic in the Tuileris Garden with two disrobed women.

I selected these paintings to ask myself, who holds the narrative context? The woman in the painting? The artist? Or me, the observer? Does the woman in each painting come to us or do we have to come to her? Was there a secret for me in Paris to discover with brush and paint?

Barbara Redmond

Exhausted from visiting museums and walking miles over the past two weeks, I discovered a young, precocious ‘Carmen’ embodied in a sixteen year-old Parisian girl who was not enjoying tea with her parents and brother at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris. Smartly dressed, and wearing flip-flops, one moment she’d flirt and tease―the next, she’d shrug and slump, then cover all but her eyes with her menu and at once fluttered the menu in the air like a fan. Sitting across from this animated and spirited young creature, not unlike my two daughters at that age, I couldn’t sketch fast enough as the hotel’s waiters, prim and proper with their hands clasped behind their backs, looked over my shoulder at my pen and ink sketches and smiled.

During the final days of my visit, every surface of my apartment was covered with interpretations now in ink and brush from the most promising sketches in my sketchbooks. Often, I made more than thirty brush and ink drawings to capture the right impression. My Athénée Carmen’s flirtatious tease or the slight snap of her scarf against her leg. I added a brilliant palette of watercolor pigments to accentuate a shimmer that brought the drawings to life.

I’ve re-imagined the four acts of Carmen through sketch, brush, water and paint, and a simple retelling of the libretto.

BOOK RECOMMENDED BY A WOMAN’S PARIS:

Georges Bizet Carmen by Susan McClary. with preface by Peter Robinson.

RADIO PODCAST: Paris: Come sketch with me

Bonjour Minnesota/KFAI Radio without boundaries 90.3 Minneapolis and 106.7 St. Paul
Podcast (live: 12 October 2010). Visit: Media Paris: Come sketch with me, on A Woman’s Paris.

Vocabulary: French to English translations

Bonjour: Hello
Le déjeuner: Lunch
L’herbe: Grass or lawn
Odalisque: (Turkish: Odalik) A female slave. An assistant to the concubines and wives
Orientalism: Term used for the imitation or depiction of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists
Romanticism: In literature and painting it stressed the importance of feelings, imagination, self-expression and individual creativity

Barbara Redmond 708x955 Paris #2Barbara Redmond, publisher of A Woman’s Paris®, is a long-time Francophile and travels to Paris every chance she gets. Her stories about Paris and France have been published in AWP® and republished, with permission, by other blogs and publications. Barbara has presented programs on French fashion and food, and has been a guest speaker for students planning their study abroad. She serves as an advisory board member at the University of Minnesota College of Design and is an active student mentor. Barbara has been recognized for excellence in art by international and national organizations and publications. Prints of her fine art paintings are in collections in Europe and North America and are available for purchase.

You may also enjoy A Woman’s Paris® post, Boulangerie Poilâne: A toast to French Breads, by Barbara Redmond who shares her face-to-face encounter with a French baker during her visit to the 18th century ovens of Poilâne in Paris. Could she steal a pinch from the raw, soft-white boule in its proofing basket resting close by? The penetrating aromas of bread; strong, yeasty, and hot… Recipes included for Tartine Chocolat et Poivre (tartine of melted chocolate and black pepper) and La tartine For’bon (tartine of cheeses and ham) from Boulangerie Poilâne

Ballet Flats in Paris: And God made Repetto, by Barbara Redmond who shares what she got from a pair of flats purchased in a ballet store in Paris; a feline, natural style from the toes up, a simple pair of shoes that transformed her whole look. Including the vimeos “Pas de Deux Coda,” by Opening Ceremony and “Repetto,” by Repetto, Paris. (French)

French Lingerie: Mysterious and flirty, by Barbara Redmond who shares her experience searching for the perfect lingerie in Paris boutiques and her “fitting” with the shop keeper, Madame, in a curtained room stripped to bare at Sabbia Rosa. Including a French to English vocabulary lesson for buying lingerie and a directory of Barbara’s favorite lingerie shops in Paris. (French)

Paris Makeover: coming home blond, by Barbara Redmond who declares, “Never question a Frenchwoman,” and succumbed to the transformation of coming home blond. Barbara describes it all: the haute-coiffure, the pharamacie, and her new “French look!” Including Barbara’s favorite book on spas, salons and beauty boutiques in Paris, and her personal directory of hair and makeup salons in Paris. Not to miss is her vocabulary of French to English words so “nothing” gets lost in translation!

Fashion Crashing: Paris haute-couture, by Barbara Redmond who crashed Maxime Simoëns’ haute-couture catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week with patience and persistence, but no invitation. The models, the show, the crème de la crème audience, and the style.

Scarves à la Françoise: The lingua Franca for stylish women, by Barbara Redmond who shares her experience trying on scarves and tying them at the home of her French friend in Lyon. Arriving at the famous silk manufacture in Lyon, André Claude Canova, Barbara and her friend gently tapped on the window even though the shop was closed. The shop girl let them and they all enjoyed hours of playfully draping, twisting and knotting scarves and shawls. An experience spurred by the ubiquitous nature of women and scarves: our common language.

L’heure bleue: the moment I fell in love with Paris, by Barbara Redmond who shares her unexpected first experiences with Paris. She was met with noise and hot and humid air; it was not the beautiful Paris she had imagined. Barbara discusses how there was moment when she found the true Paris and fell in love.


Text copyright ©2010 Barbara Redmond. All rights reserved.
Illustrations copyright ©Barbara Redmond. All rights reserved.
barbara@awomansparis.com