Auguste and Camille

Today we visited the Musee Rodin, and enjoyed it every bit as much as I did last year. The 18th century Hotel Biron and gardens are glorious, and lunch in the garden cafe was as scrumptious as I remember it. You've got to look out for the pigeons - those fat, happy Paris pigeons - who are so familiar that they will try to share the table with you.

I love Rodin. He was outspoken, flew in the face of art conformists and could turn his hand to creating paintings and sketches in addition to his models and sculptures. There's an interesting video playing on rotation in the musee that shows Rodin at work - his long beard heavy with marble chips. I also love the works of his student and mistress, Camille Claudel. The expressions of the women in her sculptures, particularly The Wave and The Gossips, are individual and incredibly real. Rodin had a great art collection himself, including Egyptian figures from BC eras and a Van Gogh which he didn't particularly like but appreciated for the artists's "genius of light". We learned that Monet and Rodin were close friends, exhibited together and that Monet swapped Rodin a painting for a sculpture. A wonderful day.

Tomorrow we're off to Chateau de Versailles. For Brent, this trip will be in lieu of a Disneyland visit. Now, you might wonder what sort of comparison that is .... well, the Chateau is presently the showcase for the pop art of Jeff Koons, an American artist. This exhibition has caused much controversy and I can understand why, but Brent is a pop art fan (and I'd rather suffer it at Versailles than be at Disneyland). For example, there's a huge gilded sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles the chimp installed in the Salon de Venus; a metallic rabbit in the Salon de l'Abondance; and others. If you're interested, visit http://www.jeffkoonsversailles.com/ or check back here after tomorrow cos I'm sure we'll take some photos if we can! You know, if Jeff Koons had been around in the day of Louis XIV, I've got a feeling his work may have appealed to the Roi Soleil's opulent tastes.