The Paris Painter

Ivy-Covered Home on the Rue De Seine, Paris,

Oil On Canvas board 11 by 14 in

By Michael Hooper

The Paris painter is alive with views of turquoise sky, yellow ochre, Paynes grey and alizarin crimson

He sings, he dances, he is moved in awe before gigantic paintings by David and Delacroix.

The Paris painter sees the color of yellow grey everywhere. The color is in the stone, across the Louvre, on the Bridges over the Seine.

So many buildings carry this special kind of yellow. The painter tries to match it.

Like a chemist he mixes yellow ochre with lemon yellow and Paynes grey and burnt sienna. 

When the sun is bright on this color, it is more lemonade than dirt. Like the Kansas limestone. Or The Yellowstone.

The color is hope and despair but mostly hope. Yellow is for sunshine, and the joy of a lovely day.

The gray is for our emptiness, our fragile nature, our mortality, our existential despair.

I meet my neighbor Anne-Marie

 

She tells stories of broken love affairs

Tears and sorrows. 

"I don't like the way I look," she says.

"I cried myself into this face."

The Parisians have come out of their covid-19 lockdown and are still trying to keep safe. In March of 2020 you couldn't leave your house for more than an hour and only for essential services.

Now there is some life again but it's restrained. The greeting with a hug and a kiss on each cheek is gone.

Where's your covid-19 papers, the waiter asks.

 

"Oh I forgot them, they are in my hotel room," I say

 

"You must have them. The police may check."

 

I return with my papers,

  

she takes a picture. 

 

I dine alone