Monday 4th August- Champs-élysées

Slight walking tour today around the Champs-Elyses and golden triangle. Gotta admit, walking past a load of designer stores that I couldn't afford to even breathe in is not my idea of a great time! Had a lovely spot for lunch however in a raised section of the Place de la Concorde, from which you can see many of the sights of Paris including the Eiffle tower, Cleopatra's needle, the arc du Triomphe and the Louvre. It was interesting to see how the city was designed with particular sight lines in mind so there are places you can stand all over the city from which you have great views of all the landmarks.  

After lunch we went into a tiny museum that housed some of Monet's last works. The paintings are huge and wrap around the walls so you have an almost panoramic experience. I really enjoyed the ones that were painted around dusk because they had great lilac tones which gave them an ethereal feel. 

Another room housed some of Picasso's pieces as well as many similar artists. I am not an art expert and I have never been overally excited by Picasso so I won't talk about the quality of the art or anything like that! 

What I did think was very interesting was the women depicted in many of the paintings. They were very very average looking. These women were all of average weight and body shape. Generally artists paint images that either themselves or their audience will find aesthetically pleasing, i.e. they paint beautiful things. This suggests that at the time the artists and their contemporaries found these women beautiful. I found it really sad that my modern brain couldn't find the beauty in them so easily. These women look like me and yet I couldn't help but cringe when seeing them so openly displayed as objects of desire because I'm used to seeing women like that in the 'shameful' sections of magazines. 

I don't personally think that one concept of beauty is 'right' over another. However, as someone who often prides themself on not being sucked in to the world of ridiculous modern beauty standards I found it interesting how strong my personal reaction was. It definitely made me re-evaluate how much the media crawls into your brain no matter how much you think you are blocking it out!