PARIS SEEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1943, Page 4

PARIS SEEN

AS IT USED TO BE. IN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS. The French Institute in London, is the temporary home of an exhibition of paintings—Paris as seen by foreign artists, says an overseas writer. Over the theshold the visitor steps into a land of memories, and as he passes from picture to picture, so Paris spreads itself around him once more, until, whilst looking at the pictures, one seems really to hear the sounds and smell the perfumes of Paris. Paris in spring, as it used to be, when the predominant green was on the trees, not on the ugly uniforms of invaders. How many artists have tried and tried to cry halt to all the busy life and light of the city and stay it for us on canvas! March, was not that the month when one looked for the first chestnut tree to blossom in the Champs Elysees, and ask friends whether they had been fortunate and seen the gladsome sight?

As one wanders past these pictures, gazing on each in turn, we see the river hastening along pent between the stone parapets of the quays, under the bridges where water marks, made centuries ago, mark on the piers heights the Seine has reached. Pont Neuf, most painted of Paris bridges, where the accomplished artist and the beginner have sought again and again to catch the spirit of the old bridge, with its laughing masks that look down on the stream.

Old houses are before us again, those wonderful old houses of Paris that helped our memories so, and made it easy to fill the courtyard again with long disappeared figures of other days, when men wore powdered wigs and ladies gathered copious skirts as they climbed into carriages. The Boulevards come to life, with their cafes and round tables, striped, brightly coloured blinds, and wonderful picture of passing humanity, the section between the Madeleine and the Opera, where footsteps sauntered nonchalently, the section between the Opera and the Faubourg Montmartre, where the pace quickened, to the interesting reaches of the river of life beyond the Porte Saint Martin and the Porte Saint Denis, where the busier citizen about his affairs walked quickly. A few colours on canvas or paper bring all this back to us, and with each picture a host of souvenirs. We, know that corner. Could we but turn it now, it would be only a few steps up the street we should have to go. How surprised the concierge would be- How quickly we should fly up those three flights of stairs. With what a cry of joy would loved arms be flung around us- ’