The Return of Guinguette

Some days ago, a few friends gathered to celebrate the return to health of Nadir Rae, of Ignis Fatuus, and the setting was itself a welcome return to Opensim - Guinguette is back online.

If you're not French, you may not know the term. A guinguette is a sort of open air tavern. located on the outskirts of big French cities, especially Paris - the most famous is probably Maison Fournaise at Chatou, immortalized by Renoir in 1880, shown here. 

They were places where townies could escape the grime of the industrial lifestyle and get a taste of nature, to dance and drink and generally have fun in a pastoral setting. In our self-conscious tourist-centered times, modern guinguettes are often  hopelessly posh - like the one at Issy or good lord the accessible-only-by-boat Chalet des Iles in the Bois de Boulogne - places where your penniless painter couldn't hope to get in. But on Ignis Fatuus grid, the charm of the old guinguette is intact, a place to kick off your shoes and enjoy a tune or two, in the company of friends.

Colored fountains and bistro tables surround the central dance hall, just steps away from the river. Speaking of steps, the region gives the visitor the impression of having many delightful spots for a pleasant walk in turn-of-the century style...

... or just break out the picnic rug the parasol and the paints. Back in 2018, Aime Socrate and Wizardoz Chrome took the Guinguette sim by Max Hill and they curated 'Art and Life'  with artwork from the Impressionist and post-Impressionist period.  Here below you can see Berthe Morisot's sister Edma dressed in white sitting among paintings by Monet, Manet, and more. How cool to walk and even sit among such pictures.

Today, Impressionism is one of the most beloved and famous schools of art, but it wasn't always that way. In the 1860s the feeling among establishment critics was that there was something seriously wrong with artists who seemed to sketch rather than carefully complete details, and who used broken brush strokes and pure color, rather than blending and smoothing their paints in a more restrained manner.  Capturing the moment, experimenting with techniques and compositions, creating vibrant pictures often completed out in nature, rather than being neatly refinished in the studio - that was the impressionist's exciting and controversial contribution. Something of the moment, pushing boundaries in both subject matter and technique... these are the qualities of the Impressionists that many a virtual builder or artists can completely understand.

This, though, is a place where one can relax. Not just art but plenty to drink and to laugh at are here. There's an outside loo here somewhere, thank goodness, for the beer and wine are flowing freely. Don't forget to pay before you drink, especially if you're drinking to forget...

Old-skool Safaristas will remember this place from more than one visit over the years, here and the build was for a long time featured in the HG Safari Self Guided Tours. These are about a dozen tours, each propose six places for you to visit. Of course Opensim being what it is, tours like that are hard to keep  up to date, as sims go offline, move, or disappear together with their entire grid. So it's particularly lovely to see Guinguette come back to life.

HG Address: ignis-fatuus.no-ip.biz:8002:Guinguette