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Opening and Closing in September

Are you ready? London's National Gallery says you're going to "be blown away by Van Gogh's most spectacular paintings in our once-in-a-century exhibition", Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers , which is on from September 14 to January 19. The show brings together "your most loved of Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe, some of which are rarely seen in public," according to the museum. Given Vincent's prolific output and the plethora of Van Gogh shows, such hype may be a little overblown. Note that tickets are already selling well, and standard admission costs £28 before Gift Aid.  Still, the Van Gogh show may provide more bang for your buck than Monet and London -- Views of the Thames in the rather small exhibition space of the Courtauld Gallery (for which standard tickets are £16). Claude Monet stayed in London three times from 1899 to 1901, painting the Houses of Parliament, Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. He showed the pictures in Paris,
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Shop till You Drop, French Style

Everybody loves a bargain when they're out shopping, don't they? Here's a tip: Get over to Normandy this summer for a great-value exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen. And it's all about shopping: Merchandise as Spectacle: Art and Retailing 1860-1914. Because even if you're not a fan of trailing round the shops, this is a fascinating slice of art and social history packed with paintings, posters and film. And they're practically giving it away! 

As cities took on a new shape in the 19th century, department stores were one of the modern wonders of the urban scene; along with railway stations they were the cathedrals of the Victorian age. And like cathedrals and railway stations, they were a motif that drew the modern artist. This is one of the great Parisian stores, Le Bon Marché, as seen by the Swiss-born Félix Vallotton.  
Obsequious mustachioed salesmen show off their fabrics to the choosy female customers. There's hardly room to squeeze your way between the counters in this giant emporium. 

Vallotton was unusual in depicting what was going on inside a shop. Artists more commonly painted exterior views of retailing, and what could be more French than the fruit and vegetable market? Here's Raoul Dufy's view of the market in Marseille. 
You can feel the bustle and almost hear the vendors crying out for your custom. No real need to advertise the market, because everyone knew when and where it was held, and customers could walk round and choose for themselves, but as more sophisticated retailing developed, you needed to get your message across to the purchaser. 

So those messages were plastered everywhere, across gable end walls as seen by Maximilien Luce, on the newly invented Morris columns as depicted by Gabriel Biessy, and around building sites. This view below by Jean-Emile Laboureur is of New York, but there are similar pictures by Dufy and Luce painted in France. 

You can understand the attraction for the artist: There's so much going on! 

Getting the shopping habit began when you were young. Developments in glass-making and lighting, we learn, meant shops had much bigger windows and goods could be displayed low down, allowing children to peek in and be tempted, perhaps on the way to school. Of course, retailers began to target children who would nag their parents to buy them things. 
Edouard Vuillard's audaciously cropped Child Wearing a Red Scarf sees the street from the restricted low perspective of a small girl. No room for the man's head! That's a fabulous scarf, isn't it, but not all kids were consumers. For many poor youngsters like Fernand Pelez's Lemon Seller, shopping meant long hours standing outside in all weathers, selling things for a few centimes just to scrape a living.

No history of shopping in France would be complete without reference to Baron Haussmann, commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III to modernise Paris. The cramped medieval city with its overcrowded housing was a breeding ground for disease and impossible to get around easily. Between 1853 and 1870 Haussmann oversaw the building of the wide boulevards and intersections with elegant multi-storey buildings and fountains that characterise the French capital today. In this show we get to see the new broad shopping streets in works by painters such as Camille Pissarro and Pierre Bonnard. These were the thoroughfares on which the new department stores were opened.

The Franco-Prussian war put an end to Napoleon's reign, and the suppression of the revolutionary Commune in Paris in 1871 brought death and destruction, including a fire which burned down the Au Tapis Rouge department store on May 24. But in just over 10 months, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, they pulled back the curtain on a splendid new store! 
There are some fantastic posters on display in this exhibition. We were particularly taken by this one for the Saint Joseph clearance sale, with the nattily dressed staff almost throwing the goods into the arms of the crowds of elegant female shoppers with their children. Six million items presque pour rien, yours for next to nothing! Everyone loves a bargain, don't they?
No chance of an unexpected item in the bagging area in the 19th or early 20th century, of course. Those department stores put a high priority on customer service, and that demanded a lot of staff. Here are the men and women from Printemps gathered for a group photo in 1907.
A 1930 film provides a fascinating look at the Samaritaine canteen, dispensing 6,000 waiter-served meals a day to staff. Because while you might have wanted to shop till you drop, you couldn't let the workers faint away from hunger on the shop floor. 

What a splendid exhibition this is; history, architecture, human interest, and art! And a nice price.... This extensive and excellent show costs a mere 5.50 euros.

Practicalities

Merchandise as Spectacle: Art and Retailing 1860-1914 is on at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen until September 8. It's open from 0930 to 1230 and from 1330 to 1800 Tuesdays to Fridays (as well as Mondays in July and August) and from 1100 to 1800 at weekends. Full-price tickets are, as noted, an exceptionally cheap 5.50 euros. We spent around 90 minutes going around; note that while the main wall captions are in French and English, texts on individual exhibits are in French only. 

The museum is in Caen's historic castle, a good 25-30 minutes walk north of the city's railway station; though if you're using public transport the urban tram network can take you most of the way. There's a car park underneath the castle. They're currently redeveloping the castle grounds, so access to the museum is essentially across a bit of a building site; don't wear your Christian Louboutin high heels. Caen is about two hours from Paris by train; ferries from Portsmouth dock in Ouistreham, just to the north of the city. 

Not very far from Caen.... 

It's only about 20 kilometres by road or a correspondingly short train journey to Bayeux to see the Tapestry that relates the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. An amazing historic document and artefact as well as a work of art in its own right, it really shouldn't be missed if you're in the area. The Museum of the Bayeux Tapestry is open every day. There's no advance booking; just turn up, though you'll need to queue at peak times.  

Images

Félix Vallotton, Le Bon Marché, 1893, Patrimoine Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche. © Patrimoine Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche
Raoul Dufy, The Market in Marseille, 1903, Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva. © Studio Monique Bernaz, Geneva
Jean-Emile Laboureur, The Posters, 1908, Musée d’arts, Nantes. © Musée d'arts de Nantes/Pauline Betton
Edouard Vuillard, Child Wearing a Red Scarf, c. 1891, National Gallery of Art, Washington. © National Gallery of Art, Washington
Au Tapis Rouge, Nouveautés, Mardi 2 avril, Ouverture d'une partie des nouveaux magasins, 1872, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Emile Lévy, A Saint Joseph. Liquidation. 1900-10, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris
Printemps staff assembled in the main hall, Boulevard Haussmann, 1907. © Collection Printemps Héritage, Paris 

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