a008  2218  14 Jun 89
PM-France-Museum,0589
Paris Boasts New Museum of Romantic Life
By MARILYN AUGUST
Associated Press Writer
    PARIS (AP) - Leave it to the amorous French. Who else would take a
dilapidated 19th-century villa and turn it into a museum dedicated to
preserving and promoting the ''Romantic life of yesteryear?''
    Tourists take note. Not far from the hurly-burly of Pigalle and the
Moulin Rouge is a haven of peace and quiet tucked away at the end of
an unpaved, ivy-covered alley.
    The Museum of Romantic Life is a small, two-story house known as the
Renan-Scheffer, after its most famous inhabitants, the painter Ary
Scheffer and historian Ernest Renand, who later married Scheffer's
niece.
    Restored to its former grace and charm, the villa recreates the life
and times of the writers, artists and musicians who gathered there
for his fashionable Friday soirees.
    Among them were the 19th-century novelist George Sand, a feminist
before her time who flaunted her upper-class background by dressing
as a man and writing about her love affairs with the poet Alfred de
Musset and composer Frederic Chopin.
    They lived in what is known today as the Saint-Georges quarter, a
residential neighborhood bordered by Pigalle to the north and the
Saint-Lazare train station to the south, flooded with young artists
who shunned the opulence and snobbery of Saint Germain on the Left
Bank.
    Post-Impressionist painters Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard
shared a studio down the street; Victor Hugo met Juliette Drouet, the
love of his life, on the rue de Clichy nearby. Charles Baudelaire,
Alexandre Dumas and Edouard Manet were neighbors, too, while Vincent
Van Gogh later would work in his brother's art gallery on the same
street.
    Located at 16 rue Chaptal, the house was built in 1830 with the
accent on calm and quiet, in keeping with the Romantic belief in a
return to nature. It was classified as a historical monument in the
1950s to ensure it would survive a development boom that saw the
demise of many unprotected landmarks.
    The house is flanked by gardens, but also has its own glassed-in
winter garden, with a fountain gushing over jasmine and moss-covered
rocks.
    The museum opened to the public last weekend with a exhibit on
George Sand. Born Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, she created a scandal
by going around in male attire and wearing a dagger at her hip,
changing her name and carrying on love affairs about which she later
wrote.
    The ground floor features a re-creation of her living room,
decorated with family portraits and etchings and with magnificent
period furniture which has been in her family for generations. Also
displayed are dozens of knickknacks, jewelry, letters - and even
snippets of her baby curls framed under glass.
    On show until Oct. 1 is a special exhibition of three versions of
''Le Larmoyeur,'' (The Weeper), one of Scheffer's best-known
paintings.
    Though he has fallen into near-total oblivion, Scheffer was one of
the 19th century's most successful artists. Scorned by the critics
but adored by the public, he even gave drawing lessons to King Louis
Philippe's children.
    ''Scheffer is very interesting to art historians because he is at
the crossroads of all the tendencies and influences of the 19th
century,'' said museum curator Anne-Marie Brem. ''But the critics
gave him a bad time when he began to paint like Delacroix or like
Ingres, and lost his own style.''
    Mrs. Brem said the museum can handle about 100 people comfortably,
but that every effort was made to keep it ''homey and intimate, as if
somebody still lived there.''
    
 
AP-NY-06-15-89 0107EDT
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