By Iris Samuels<\/p>\n
On a Monday morning, the line for the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg stretched around the block. Patrons readily waited in the gloomy weather to see the new exhibit. Three days after the opening of Pissarro in \u00c9ragny<\/span><\/em>, the art lovers of Paris flocked to be among the first to see the highly-anticipated retrospective.<\/span><\/p>\n While the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg is much smaller than some of Paris’s better-known museums, its history is grander than most. The museum\u00a0was established in 1750 as the first public painting gallery in Paris. It displayed the king\u2019s collection, including works by Titian and Leonardo Da Vinci. The gallery’s\u00a0next incarnation was as a center\u00a0of contemporary art, between 1818 and 1937. It housed many up-and-coming artists of Paris, such as Monet, C\u00e9zanne and Renoir, who now adorn the walls of the city’s\u00a0biggest museums \u2013 the Louvre, Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay and the Centre Pompidou.<\/span><\/p>\n Since 1979, the space has been home to visiting exhibits, which have paid\u00a0homage to some of Europe’s best artists. The current one features paintings by Camille Pissarro, one of the leaders of Impressionism and pointillist art in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>century. The exhibit depicts Pissarro\u2019s connection with \u00c9ragny, a village in northern Paris where he lived for the\u00a0last two decades of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n Pissarro\u2019s paintings are a poignant complement to the gardens just outside the building. They portray\u00a0the natural environment of \u00c9ragny – tree-filled, pastoral\u00a0and innocent. In the neighboring gardens the scene is similarly\u00a0idyllic, as\u00a0children frolic by the fountains, lovers enjoy the seclusion and runners take to the gravel paths. Just as Pissarro sought calm in the village of \u00c9ragny, so do Parisian seek a respite from the city’s hectic streets on these\u00a0Left Bank grounds.<\/span><\/p>\n The Jardin du Luxembourg dates back to 1612, and\u00a0has had many lives. According to Alan Riding, former European cultural correspondent for the New York Times, the Luxembourg palace, once home to kings and queens, was briefly turned into a prison after the French Revolution. During the Second World War, it served as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe. Now it is\u00a0the home of\u00a0the French Senate \u2013 a place for statecraft, formal meetings, and decadent dinners.<\/span><\/p>\n The latest\u00a0change in the grounds’ never-ending evolution is a new metal fence erected around the palace. According to Riding, it was installed after the recent terror attacks rocked the city, as part of a concerted effort to defend Paris\u00a0from the growing threat of terrorism.<\/span><\/p>\n The gardens mirror the city that had grown around them. Balancing\u00a0the urbane and the natural, the elite\u00a0and the plebeians, Paris is constantly adjusting to the changing world, while desperately clinging to the beauty and grandeur that have been its birthright for hundreds of years. Pissarro\u2019s exhibit is a delicate reminder that even as guards armed with machine guns roam the city, and constant vigilance is in high demand, Paris will always remain a city where nature is shaped into high art.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Iris Samuels On a Monday morning, the line for the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg stretched around the block. Patrons readily waited in the gloomy weather to see the new exhibit. Three days after the opening of Pissarro in \u00c9ragny, the art lovers of Paris flocked to be among the first to see the highly-anticipated retrospective. … <\/p>\n