FRANCE Magazine

Lovers of France, that is. If you’re reading this, I think it’s safe to assume you figure among them? And I surmise, since many of you are fellow-bloggers, that you probably like to write. I thought this was good enough to share.

FRANCE Magazine is offering American readers the chance to write about their recent trips to France, with the oppotunity to win a $100 gift voucher.

To enter, email their editorial page at editorial@francemag.com. What do you have to lose?

Jan del Monte, bridging the difference

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Paris Scene

As you probably know, I’m always on board when it comes to mixing sustainable tourism with a plain, old-fashioned good time.

To kick off the new year, ARTS in PARIS offers you the opportunity to combine a visit to Paris with support for a very worthy cause. On any tour booked between now and April 1st, 10% of the tour fee will be donated to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins San Frontières (MSF). Click on the link to learn more about the wonderful humanitarian work of this extraordinary organization.

This offer covers prepackaged tours, as well as custom-designed personalized tours, and applies to all tours booked before April 1 and begun before December 31, 2012.

The next scheduled tour is Impressions of Paris, from May 3 – 11, 2012. For details on this tour, Schedule of Activities and Pricing Information, visit the site by clicking the link.

If spring travel is not on your agenda, learn about the Biennale des Antiquaires tour in September 2012.

I hope we can meet this year in Paris.

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance

(Photo by Michele Melick)

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Eiffel Tower, Paris

As we enter the New Year, I would like to thank everyone who has had a part in the development of ARTS in PARIS. Starting a new business can be daunting, not to mention often lonely, and so, to everyone who has contributed their moral support, resources, suggestions, and to all of those who have recounted their experiences in Paris and in France, my infinite gratitude.

Beginning a new project  is a leap of faith, requiring a belief in something that doesn’t exist at that time. I am happy to report that ARTS in PARIS is alive and well, and continues to grow and evolve. I expect and hope it will always be a work in progress.

We are looking forward to some interesting experiences this year. In May, our Impressions of Paris tour will take place, an opportunity to experience this city that inspired the Impressionnists at one of the most beautiful seasons of the year.

Then, in September, one of my favorite arts events takes place — The Biennale des Antiquaires. I love this salon, and I want to share it. Two years ago, due to a conflict, I missed it — and vowed NEVER to do so again. I will be in Paris this year and invite you to join me. The schedule for the tour will be published soon.

Although predicting the future is not a skill I claim, I can promise you a year filled with interesting happenings in the world of French art, both in France and elsewhere. Paris being Paris, there is a lot going on, as usual.

To learn of events that take place during the year, be sure to consult “Save the Date.” on this site. I try to highlight the most interesting offerings, but it’s impossible not to miss a few. I would welcome your input, so if you hear of anything going on, please let me know.

So, having just scratched the surface of what to expect this year, I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance

(Photo Credit: viZZZual.com)

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La Cilombe de la Paix (The Dove of Peace), stained glass by Guy Breniaus, photo by Fazland

Bonne Fête — Merry Christmas

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Book a tour with ARTS in PARIS during the month of October and 10% of your deposit will be donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. (Tours must be completed by December 31, 2012.)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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Mint, lemon, coffee and chocolate macarons

Just another advantage of living in la Grande Pomme: this month, Manhattan welcomes the first American outlet of Maisons Ladurée. Operating in Paris since 1862, the venerable maison has branches in 12 (soon to be 13) countries in addition to the six in Paris (including one at the airport — what a fine idea! — and another at the château de Versailles). The shop will offer tea, preserves, chocolates and, of course, the legendary macarons.

The address? 864 Madison Avenue.

Pierre Hermé, what are you waiting for?

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance

(Photo, Liliana Bozier)

© 2011 Jane del Monte

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Employing René Lalique’s lost wax technique and a special formula of copper and cobalt oxides to produce the color, — developed by Klein and known as IKB, or International Klein Blue — the sculpture is shown below. Read more…

Yves Klein, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Lalique

And what does this have to do with ARTS IN PARIS? Just that I’ve been immersed in the new site, with little time to blog here. I will do better. In the meantime, let me say the response to the site has been gratifying, So far this month, we’ve tripled the visits of last month. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll visit and give me your feedback. And of course, if you see a trip in your future, I’d like nothing better than to share Paris with you.

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance

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© 2011 Jane del Monte

In truth, I really love walking, having spent most of my adult life in world-class pedestrian cities. Need I say that Atlanta is not one of them? So I’ve renewed my acquaintance with public transportation.

One advantage of taking the MARTA (I almost never slip and call it “Métro” anymore) is that it’s boring — and so I read more.

Not long ago, I picked up an old friend, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. As with many friends who’ve been absent for a while, you find yourself taking up where you left off, rediscovering things about them you had forgotten while at the same time discovering things you had never before noticed.

I had forgotten that this one never fails to make me smile. So enchanting is it in its  innocence that you scarcely notice the depth of its wisdom. But you feel it.

It is generally accepted that the prince represents the author’s desire to return to his inner child; the rose, his beloved wife Consuelo. The book could be seen as a love letter, were it not so much more.

• The book was written in the United States and first published in English. Saint-Exupery, along with a number of French intellectuals, had quit France during the Occupation. It wasn’t published in France until two years later, after the author’s death.
• It has sold more than 80 million copies and  has been translated into 190 different languages.
• It has been adapted to stage, screen and opera.
• Before the euro became France’s official currency, the little prince and Saint-Exupery appeared on the 50-franc note.
• The airport of Lyon, France, birthplace of Saint-Exupery, is named in his honor.

The Little Prince is especially beloved by the Japanese. There is a Museum of the Little Prince in Hakone, Japan. The chapel is a replica of the one in the village of Saint-Maurice-de Remens, Saint-Exupery’s childhood home, with rose and fox motifs incorporated into the stained glass of the interior facade. A café, Le Saint-Germain-des-Près, is modeled on the Brasserie Lipp, one of his favorite haunts, and the more elaborate Restaurant Le Petit Prince offers the cuisine of Provence, prepared (according to the website) by “Monsieur Okabe, who defeated Iron Chef Sakai in a lamb battle on the Japanese TV program Iron Chef.”

And the book is eminently quotable:

• “You are responsible for that which you tame.”
• “All grownups have been children, but few remember it.”
• “Language is the source of misunderstanding.”
• “It is truly useful since it is pretty.”
• “One only sees well with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.”

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance between Paris and Atlanta

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© 2011 Jane del Monte

Robert Delaunay, La Tour Eiffel

It’s hard to believe  nearly a year has passed since I last posted here. I’m sure many of you had given me up for lost, and justifiably so. There have been many changes in the intervening months and those preceding them, the most significant being a transatlantic move. It is a long way from Paris to Atlanta, Georgia, but I’m doing everything I can to bridge the distance.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what an adjustment this has been and I still sometimes have the feeling that I am in a foreign country. That’s how much I felt at home in France. However, I think this is a good career move, as well as being where a lot of my family is located, and I will continue to spend a lot of time in France.

I have been busy with several projects, the most important of which (at least in terms of time expended) is ARTS IN PARIS Tours, personalized luxury tours of Paris and and other parts of France. Luxury, in this case, has less to do with cost than with the quality of the offerings. As many of you know, ARTS IN PARIS began in Paris, where I accompanied art lovers who were interested in purchasing French art and antiques. We have expanded beyond that, and we hope to continue to expand, with such future destinations as London and Brussels, as well as the French countryside.

One of the reasons for my absence is that I have been developing my website — always a work in progress. I’m sure I don’t have to tell most of you how time-consuming this can be. Someone asked me once how long it would take to set up a blog or a site. I told them, truthfully, they could be posting in an hour or two. On the other hand, choosing a color for the background could take weeks! The is especially true for those of us in esthetically-oriented fields. I hope you will take the time to look at it and, if you would, give me your feedback. It is located at www.parisartstravel.com.

I think you will find that this blog remains essentially the same. Its primary focus will be, as always, French decorative arts and culture. However, reflecting an increased amount of time spent in the United States, I will be exploring, whenever possible, the French presence here. I hope my fellow francophiles will share with me what they know on that subject. “Save the Date” has always been one of the most popular features, and it will be back the first of August to help you keep abreast of exhibitions in France or those taking place elsewhere that related to French art.

Jane del Monte, bridging the distance between Paris and Atlanta

© 2011 Jane del Monte

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“Rendez-vous in December for a Maxi Best of Mona Lisa menu,” announces Louvre pour Tous, an Internet journal aimed at museum visitors. They qualify the plan by McDonald’s to open its newest French outlet (number 1,135) in the Musée du Louvre as a “lack of taste,” citing the “tsunami” of global media reaction.

The most indignant criticism comes from the foreign press, and it is the anglophone press whose knickers are in a collective twist. The New York Daily News calls it “a move guaranteed to wipe the famous smile off Mona Lisa’s mug.”

Across the Channel, the British press sees the move as a defeat in the battle between high gastronomy and standardized (to be polite) food. Not that they don’t appreciate the irony of the fast-food giant doing so well in the country where cuisine has attained art form status. London’s Telegraph calls it “a move which has managed to get both France’s art lovers and gastronomes choking on their Gitanes.”

For those who cringe at the specter of super-sized tourists munching Big Macs before the Venus de Milo, relax. McDo, as it is known here, will be joining similar restaurants in the food court of the Carrousel du Louvre, the commercial space beneath the Pyramide. Described in its publicity as “a successful meeting between culture, tourism, history and shopping,” the plan was to have stores that sold high-ticket items or, at least, those related to culture, and many remain. However, McDonald’s might be seen as a logical addition to Virgin Megastore, Tie Rack and Hertz. Can Jenny Craig be far behind?

The chain is seen in France and around the world as a symbol of American globalization. French deputy José Bové gained prominence in 1999 when he and a band of militants bulldozed a McDonald’s construction site in a two-pronged protest against American sanctions on certain European products and against malbouffe or junk food.

Yet France is the chain’s largest market outside the U.S., and the outlet on avenue des Champs-Elysées is the most profitable in the world. McDonald’s chief executive Jim Skinner attributes that success to the fact that “we are perceived as a French enterprise.”  One has to wonder where he gets his information.

I’d love to have your thoughts on this.

(Photo Credit: La Tribune)

Jan del Monte,’ blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

 © 2009 Jan del Monte

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