Paris - Post 3

There's no shortage of museums in Paris, though the highlight was definitely Musee Fragonard at the National Veterinary School. It was my first time seeing preserved human cadavers and animal mutations so artfully displayed.

What's incredible is that these preservations were made well over 200 years ago, so I can't even begin to fathom how strange it must have been for Fragonard to figure out the right sets of chemicals and techniques to make this all possible. He apparently got the boot as director of the vet school for being too crazy.

Dancing baby cadavers on the left, lamb with many legs mutation below. Additional Fragonard pictures at the end of this post.

The next best 'museum' was 104 (Centquatre), which is not really a museum but more an arts center. When you walk in, there are people practicing theatre, dance, and any other imaginable body movement art in a massive open space. Publicly funded artists reside on the upper levels and are expected to showcase their work throughout the year.

One of the best pieces was Leandro Erlich's "Bâtiment" which was simply a facade of a building on the floor with a mirrored reflection to make it look vertically correct on approach. Here's a picture of me (standing by the number 6) looking up at the mirrored reflection.

And, below, this is what it looks like as people play on the facade on the floor. Oh no, they're all upside down and hanging off the sides of the building! Super fun.

The Carnavelet museum was good on the first floor, where original shop signs from hundreds of years ago were on display. This museum got a little dreary on the upper levels as it was then filled with general Parisian furniture/arts finery of different time periods.

Photo credit: EveryTrail.com

And for no particularly compelling reason except that we were right by it, we made as quick as possible visit through the Louvre. It's so massively humongous as to be unpleasant, and the works on display are so historic as to be a bit dull.

Discovering Hammurabi's Code in the Egyptian section was great, though.

It's a bit disconcerting that there is a shopping mall (like a fancy airport-style shopping mall) inside the same complex as the Louvre, though below ground so you would never know it.

Photo credit: DailyVenture.com