A Stroll in the Gallery - Le violin de Ingres

Man Ray. Le violin de Ingres. 1924.

Doctoring photographs was nothing knew when Man Ray created this iconic image in 1924. Photographers had been retouching photos ever since Niépce and Daguerre invented the medium in the early 1800s. Indeed, an early test of the “art” in photography was evidence of the photo-maker’s hand in the print. It was understood to be a sleight of hand, known to discerning connoisseurs but not the public at large. What was astounding and revolutionary about Man Ray’s work was the obvious irony of his manipulation. To impose anachronism on it, Le violin de Ingres can be viewed as the Mother of All Photoshopped Images.

The model here is the legendary Kiki of Montparnasse, demurely Orientalist in her salad days.

Feeding the Flaneur

Philip Trager.
Changing Paris: A Tour Along the Seine.
Arena Editions, 2000.

Jacques Hillairet
Connaissance du Vieux Paris.
Rivages, 1993 (re-issue)

Jacques Hillairet
Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris.
Editions Minuit, 1985. (two volumes)

In Memory of My Father on His Birthday

Hoarding & the Lifehack: Les Bouquinistes

This photo finds yours truly perusing a 1745 edition of Voltaire found in one of the bookstalls along the Seine. Paris, of course, has its own particular name for the place and its pursuits: Les Bouquinistes.

JoAnn on the Art of Teaching

JoAnn showed me a Sheridan College web page where she and her colleagues describe how they incorporate group work in their courses. Then we did our own group work with Blogger resulting in Free Hugs, a YouTube embed on her course blog.

She also brought a disk of our 2005 Paris photos, whence comes this shot of her upstaging Pan in the Luxembourg Gardens..

Café Mouffe Encore: Bud Powell in Paris 1959

Bud Powell in Paris, December 1959: Get Happy. Dig Bud’s hands on the keys. Dig the Paris cellar ambiance. My kind of gig! This is a crisp noir clip with pretty good sound. That’s Kenny Clarke on drums and Pierre Michelot on bass. YouTube has 30 Bud Powell clips.