One way a book can make you happy is to transport you from your armchair to someplace else altogether. It helps, of course, for the place to be somewhere you’d like to visit (exposés need not apply). From Prevention’s list of 55 happy books, I’ll point to Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence and Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon as books that make you adore being in France. Read More
Picturing a World
Passage des Panoramas
July 18, 2018
Blog tip: For some great photographs and the sound of a voice echoing in the Passage des Panoramas, where Jeanette finds the Académie Julian, visit the Soundlandescapes' Blog for May 16!
Béraud at Les Halles
February 2, 2018
While cleaning up my writing room this week, I found a slip of paper in a box of old research for Where the Light Falls. It noted that a painting of Les Halles by Jean Béraud was shown at the 1879 Salon (at which Jeanette exhibits) and was now at the Haggin Read More
Paris street light
December 8, 2017
The absence of the Luxor obelisk, which was erected at the Place de la Concorde and opened to the public in 1836, and the long coats and top hats of the men suggest that Vauzelle painted this picture, when? ca. 1830? Anyway, what really interests me is that lantern strung over the road, presumably an oil Read More
Marie-François Firmin-Girard
July 5, 2017
Blog post alert:> Thanks to a post at Line and Colors for introducing me to Marie-François Firmin-Girard. I love finding pictures that I might have used for Where the Light Falls had I come upon them in time. Read More
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Children in the Luxembourg Garden
July 30, 2016
A post on Children in the Summer Park at the blog, It’s About Time, alerted me to a painting I’ve been searching for without being able to remember the artist’s name—Albert Edelfelt. Itwas this painting that first gave me the idea Read More
Female gaze
May 30, 2016
Blog tip: Sunday post at the always interesting Lines and Colors, sent me to Spanish painter Ramon Casas, who studied with
Carolus-Duran at about the Read More
Carolus-Duran at about the Read More
Paris panoroama
January 18, 2016
Website tip: Wheeeee! For a 360° panorama of Paris in high resolution, click here.
Banlieues
September 29, 2014
By the time her train reaches Paris, Jeanette is feeling scared, and this moody photograph helped me think about what was outside the window as the day darkened. Baron Haussmann’s remaking of Paris not only changed the physical look of the city, but also distorted Read More
Learning by blogging
August 21, 2014
To complement Bellows’ Steaming Trains, I was looking for one of Hassam’s American urban landscapes when I came across this image of Paris. Aha! One of the Wallace water fountains I didn’t know about until this summer. Well, well.
My experience is that you don't leave a fictional world behind even after you finish a story. Things keep reminding you of it and adding to your understanding of characters, setting, and motives. And there’s nothing like blogging to make you bring together bits of this and that! Read More
My experience is that you don't leave a fictional world behind even after you finish a story. Things keep reminding you of it and adding to your understanding of characters, setting, and motives. And there’s nothing like blogging to make you bring together bits of this and that! Read More