The Archaeopteryx of Paris

So let's start with exhibit A. This is the work that first gave me the idea for the blog. It was a nice hotel in Paris - a bit poky but then they always are - near the Rue St Jacques and the Sorbonne. I was spending a weekend there last May with my girlfriend and we were on the top floor, looking out across the rooftops towards the Pantheon. The room was small but nice, perfectly liveable with, but it was dominated by this amazing picture;

I am not sure if it's faux naif or just by someone who isn't very good at painting. It's probably done by the hotel owner themselves. The style is sort-of Impressionist, but who could fail to be charmed by the spray of apparently dead flowers, or the strange creature squatting on the right, apparently looking at what might be a dragonfly above it.

I find there is something strangely hypnotic about the Green Bat-Bird of Death and its weird vampiric plumage. To me it looks like one of those reconstructions of a long extinct transitional form between dinosaurs and birds, like archaeopteryx;

What can one say but bravo, monsieur l'artiste!

A common theme you'll note is that most of our works are signed. This one is attributed to 'M. Alde'. Monsieur Alde? Or perhaps just Marcel. We may never know.