Art in Paris
Paris is recognized globally for its public landmarks and masterpieces of architecture including the Arc de Triomphe and a symbol of France, the Eiffel Tower.
Sculptors such as Girardon, Coysevox and Coustou acquired a reputation for being the finest artists in the royal court in 17th century France.
In this medieval era, depictions of the Virgin Madonna and her Blessed Child were common, and were written to have shown Paris a "protective presence".
Paris continued to exert a "strong pull on many aspiring artists from the French provinces" at the beginning of the 20th century.
Following the Armory Show of 1913, New York City increasingly competed with Paris as a hub for artists, and its museums acquired some of the world's most valuable paintings.
Francis I (a connoisseur of Art), initially started building the Louvre as part of the royal palace erected at a location where a 12th-century fortress of Philip Augustus existed.
Its collection is now mainly European art up to the Revolutions of 1848 as paintings of later date have been moved to the Orsay Museum that opened in 1986.
[18] The museum which was renovated in 2013 housed in the Hôtel Salé, a mid nineteenth century edifice has a rich collection of 3500 drawings, engravings, paintings, ceramic works and sculptures by the grand maître (great master) Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).
It is housed in the Hôtel des Abbés de Cluny, a 15th-century monument built in medieval architectural style and also holds the remnants of Gallo-Roman thermes (baths) dated around to 200 AD, which is called the cool room.
[20] Paris's newest (and third-largest) museum, the Musée du quai Branly, opened its doors in June 2006 and houses art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, including many from Mesoamerican cultures.
The museum was opened in 1986 and has exhibits of French painting, sculpture, photography, and decorative arts of the mid and late 19th century; French academic painting and sculpture of the 19th century are by many artists "of the late Romantic and Neoclassical, Realist, Barbizon, Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Divisionist, and Nabi schools.
[23] During the early 20th century, a group of artists referred to as the École de Paris, many of whom were of Jewish origin congregated in Montparnasse.
[25] Starkly apparent with its service-pipe exterior, the Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as Beaubourg, houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne.
[27] The Moulin Rouge cabaret-dancehall, for example, is a staged dinner theatre spectacle, a dance display that was once but one aspect of the cabaret's former atmosphere.
The equestrian statue of Louis XIV in the Place Vendôme is one of the largest pieces of bronze sculpture ever made, weighing more than 60,000 pounds, and was formed in one cast without a joint.
Like painting and sculpture, Paris has also attracted communities of photographers, and was an important centre for the development of photography; indeed inventor Nicephore Niepce produced the first permanent photograph on a polished pewter plate in Paris in 1825, and then developed the process with Louis Daguerre.
For several days, this exhibition becomes the international meeting place between galleries, collectors, curators, museum directors and personalities from around the world.
