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All Saints’ Day

Today is Toussaint, or ‘all Saints’ Day’ in France. Everybody goes to cemeteries to remember.

What’s it like to go on The Chairfather tours? Here’s a taste, visiting Modigliani at Père Lachaise in Paris. 

Go past Madeleine Goukassof on your left and the tall monument to the family Kanjovnzeff on your right.  Our next host is the second on the left just after the pine.

 

Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian master sculptor and painter furiously active at the beginning of the last century.  He liked to paint reclining nudes of beautiful young women, and who can blame him?  Apparently, Parisian police, who closed his only solo exhibition for obscenity on opening day.

Hey, why the long face?  Is it because angular figures are a distinctive feature of the works of Modigliani?  Or is it because the artist died too soon from a degenerative disease at the age of 35?  Or because his young model and lover jumped from a 5th floor window to join him in the afterlife?  Both are reunited under this stone.

His is another incredibly tragic story of a starving artist who passed away before receiving the accolades and riches he deserved.  Who else has both a sculpture, and a painting, among the Top 10 most expensive auctions of each medium?  Not Matisse.  Not Picasso.  Modigliani stands alone.

When you’re ready, go back out to the main cobblestone road and continue walking downhill. 

 

I’ll guide you to 50 final resting places on my @VoiceMap tours of the Père Lachaise cemetery, and tell stories from the fascinating lives of painters, performers and pompous politicians!

See funny souvenir pictures and text from our picnic together in The Chairfather book.

The passed have never been more alive!

Book a lunch date with the fallen famous NOW!

Or later…

Really, it doesn’t matter. Their agendas are quite open.

#VoiceMap #WalkingTour #audioguide #atyourownpace #Paris #tourism

© 2018 Copyright Joe Start. All rights reserved.



 

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