09.17.07
Posted in Academic, Art, Books & Paper, Paris Life at 10:11 am by rachel
The rich and tumultuous history of Paris can be told in part by a vast series of photographs, lithographs, and other images now available to anyone with an internet connection. The Paris en Images collection is an excellent database with a search feature which allows the researcher to find images by keyword and date. What’s even better is that they are freely available for private and scholarly use.
The barricade has been almost as much a part of Parisian history as the Seine river. Since the 16th century Parisians have dug up paving stones and piled them into barricades during numerous revolutions, insurrections, and protests. Here, I’ve picked some of my favorite images of barricades, and in places very much recognizable in present-day Paris. We think of Parisian history (and by extension that of France) as being an ever-changing series of radically different regimes. It’s interesting to me, however, to see the continuity in the form of protest, both on the right and left.
Revolution of 1848, Remains of a Barricade on rue Royale
Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871, Barricade at l’Étoile
Paris Commune, 1871, Barricade at Hôtel de Ville
Paris Commune, 1871, Vendôme Column Pulled to the Ground
Construction of a Barricade at a Gate of Paris, August 1914
1934, Protest of the Ligues de droite (right-wing political organization)
Liberation of Paris, Barricade at the Pont Neuf and rue Dauphine, August 1944
May 1968, Barricade on the rue Racine
Further reading:
Mark Traugott, “Barricades as Repertoire: Continuities and Discontinuities in the History of French Contention.” Social Science History, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp.309-323.
Jeannene M. Przyblyski, “Revolution at a Standstill: Photography and the Paris Commune of 1871.” Yale French Studies, No. 101, Fragments of Revolution. (2001), pp. 54-78.
Jill Harsin, Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
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06.04.07
Posted in Academic, Art, Paris Life at 11:00 am by rachel
Was Picasso – lover of women, Spaniard expatriate, passionate painter – preoccupied with the figure of the gypsy seductress, Carmen? The Musée Picasso is currently holding an exhibition based on the premise that the character of Carmen, first developed in Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novel and then interpreted in Georges Bizet’s 1874 opera, was an influential figure in the painter’s oeuvre and imaginary. Alan Riding’s interesting review in the International Herald Tribune promotes this reading of Picasso’s work, imagining a seductive Carmen as motor and muse for his representations of the many women he painted throughout his life. I am not convinced this reading “sticks,” however, once you’ve examined the sources on display.
To be sure, Picasso twice illustrated editions of Carmen – once in the late 1940s and again in 1964 (Le Carmen des Carmen) – and entitled “Carmen” an early drawing of a Spanish woman. A Spaniard and also lover of many women, images of his lovers wearing mantilla veils appear in dozens of drawings and paintings, as does imagery of the corrida. These two themes – seductive women and the bullfight – are indeed the principal components of the Carmen story and so, also, form the bulk of the Picasso works in the exhibition.
But I argue that these themes are simply identifiers of the Spanish culture from which Picasso came and then definitively left behind during the Franco era. The retro-fit operation of placing Carmen behind these works of art doesn’t seem to fit when Carmen really represents an exotic, Spanish caricature that would mean more to an outsider (say, a French author) than to the painter himself.
The Corrida
An avid fan of the corrida, Picasso quite often experienced this tradition of stamina and struggle, honor and sacrifice. It should be no surprise that the bullfight would emerge in so many of his drawings and paintings: Alan Riding has a convincing argument that Picasso used the bullfight in his art as a metaphor for animalistic human passions. Nonetheless, it would hold more strongly that the corrida imagery came from first-hand experience and artistic interpretation than it did from a 19th-century French story the artist read or opera he saw. It is not doubtful Picasso was interested in the corrida theme of the Carmen story, but the interest most likely preceded the story and not the other way around. It made up the cultural imaginary that surrounded him.
The Seductress
Much has been said about Picasso’s personal life. Womanizer to some, serial monogamist to others, he was married twice and had four children with three different women, and had many other companions in between. Françoise Gilot notoriously wrote about their 9-year relationship in often unflattering terms. I am not convinced, however, that this behavior is linked to a “Carmen” that Picasso sought time after time in his serial amorous exploits. The theme of the femme fatale has more far-reaching origins and widespread interpretations than the particular figure of Carmen. Fin-de-siècle and Belle Epoque art and literature is particularly preoccupied with dangerous, hysterical, and eroticized femmes fatales, through figures like the biblical Salomé in the symbolist art of Gustave Moreau, paintings by Gustav Klimt, and literary works by decadent writers like Joris-Karl Huysmans. If in Picasso’s work or life such a figure emerges, it would be more useful to analyze this phenomenon in the broader context of late 19th- and early 20th-century art.
In all, the exhibition did not seem to provide convincing evidence of a “Carmen” figure as the influential force behind the works displayed, but promoted instead a hind-sight look at his oeuvre through Merimée’s lens. Spain seen through the eyes of a Frenchman (be it Mérimée or Bizet) then caricaturized and reintroduced to a Spaniard? It may be giving too much credit to the mythical Carmen what Picasso’s own native visual inspiration and cultural imagery produced in his work. This context would serve as a more accurate and equally interesting premise to the exhibition.
“Picasso-Carmen: Sol y Sombra” runs until June 24.
Musée Picasso, 5, rue de Thorigny, 3rd arrondissement.
Open everyday but Tuesday from 9:30am-6:00pm.
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03.24.07
Posted in Academic, Art at 10:22 am by rachel
I do a lot of research in the microfilm room of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Reel after reel of newspaper pages sometimes have surprises that amuse or shock me, and make the time fly by. Sometimes I find sensational fin-de-siècle headlines about “vampires” (people with rabies), sad souls jumping from the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, or the latest duel (a common way to resolve differences). But searching through Ici Paris, a later newspaper from the 1940s and 1950s, I found the sweetest drawings by a cartoonist named Raymond Peynet.
You may recognize his illustrations, which sometimes appears on post cards in Parisian paper shops. The theme is usually “les amoureux” with two lovers appearing in a variety of locations in a light-hearted scenarios, sometimes even akin to the floating style akin to Chagall.
Peynet (1908-1999) was born in Paris and became one of the most popular illustrators in France. He began his series of “Les amoureux” (the poet and his companion) in 1942, and later went on to draw over 6000 charming images in the series. The French singer/songwriter Georges Brassens even wrote a song inspired by the drawings, called “Les amoureux des banc publics” (”The Lovers of Public Benches”). There are two museums in France dedicated to the illustrator’s work. One in Brassac-les-Mines, and another in Antibes. The Picasso museum in Antibes (which I last visited in 2000) is closed for renovations until 2008, but the Peynet gives me a new reason to visit that Mediterranean town.
Below are some Peynet illustrations I found online, although I hope to photocopy and scan many of the ones I have found at the library. Note that, in the drawing of the gazebo, the woman is knitting! How can I not be one of the many “amoureux” of Peynet?
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03.14.07
Posted in Academic, Art, Paris Life at 11:21 am by rachel
I caught a sneak peak last night of the Samuel Beckett exposition that opens today at the Centre Pompidou. It was difficult for me to imagine exactly how an art museum would present the work of a novelist, playwright, and poet, but with all of the audio and video pieces, as well as paintings influenced by or favored by Beckett, the show pulls it off and you can spend hours taking it all in.
I recently took on a small side project of creating a Samuel Beckett crossword, which forced me to research and rediscover the work of one of my favorite authors of the twentieth century. As Professor Tom Bishop discussed in a talk he gave last fall, Beckett criticism often focuses on pessimism, the failure of language, the human condition of blindly, senselessly marching towards inescapable death. Bishop points out, however, that no character in Beckett’s work ever commits suicide, and there is a strange sort of optimism that one can read once they put down the existentialist lens. Godot never arrives, but Bishop asks, would it necessarily be a good thing if he did? The waiting continues, the characters continue to be.
Rather than attempt to delve deeper into Beckettian criticism, I thought I’d list some of my favorite Beckett quotations here, as a primer for those new to his work.
“Il faut continuer, je ne peux pas continuer… Je vais continuer.”
“You must go on. I can’t go on. I will go on.”
“Tant quil ya de la vie, il y a de l’espoir.”
As long as there is life, there is hope.
“Rire ou pleurer c’est la même chose à la fin.”
“Laugh or cry, it all comes out the same in the end.”
“Mais à cet endroit, en ce moment, l’humanité c’est nous, que ça nous plaise ou non. Profitons-en, avant qu’il soit trop tard.”
“But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!”
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03.09.07
Posted in Academic, Books & Paper, Paris Life at 3:14 pm by rachel
Look what I found! I picked up this 1902 almanac at an antique book fair this week. It is packed with the lovliest images of most everything a respected housewife would need to know in 1902: maps (both terrestrial and celestial), wheat varieties, bicycles, pipes, fashion, statues from Antiquity, furniture, jewelry, European rulers, theater seating charts… This reference for daily life is a window to another era, showing the past under a new light. I particularly love the kind of sources that unveil customs and habits – sources that simply answer the question, ‘what did regular people do back then?’
The section on health and remedies is particularly revealing. Sadly, we have not made any progress in curing the migraine headache (the recommended treatment is the same today: caffeine and staying far away from light). Nevertheless, modern medecine has proven that, contrary to the 1902 belief, smoking cigarettes (!) probably isn’t the best remedy for a cough or the flu.
The hair styles look complicated to do up every single day, but there was an easy solution to this time-consuming practice: in 1902, it was recommended that women wash their hair once a month (once a week for men). Women would probably leave their hairdo in.
The large calendar section was perhaps the most important for the reader’s role in the family: it was the wife’s job to keep track of the household budget, so each day she wrote down expenses and earnings. At the beginning of each month are ideas for family meals, which was a serious financial responsability. The yearly proportion of earnings that went to food in 1902 is significantly larger than it is today. Food was by far the biggest expenditure: 4 1/2 months of salary per year were spent on it, compared to 2 months of salary for rent, and just 10 days of salary spent on taxes. Other expenditures:
1 1/2 months for “la bonne” (the servant)
1 month for up-keep
1 month for savings
1 month for children’s education
15 days spent on heat
5 days devoted to “les plaisirs” (pleasures)
While I am focusing on the Fin-de-Siècle and Belle Epoque for my dissertation, I have worked extensively on the interwar period as well, which is characterized by a great concern with dropping birthrates. So much has been written about pronatalism in the 1920s and 1930s, I was somewhat suprised to note the same concern in the 1902 almanac (by the way, France pushed a pronatalist policy into the 1980s). I have included this page below, entitled “La Frace sans enfants.” Note the proverb at the bottom: “Household without children, vine without branch.” With all the homemaker had to keep up with in daily life, between theater visits, social calls, sewing, horse and dog shows, agricultural salons, and letter-writing (there is a whole section on that, including handwriting analysis), it is no wonder she couldn’t find time to produce a soccer team of children.
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02.02.07
Posted in Academic, Art, Paris Life at 5:36 pm by rachel
The Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (that’s a mouthful) is currently showing an exhibition on Georges Rouault and Henri Matisse - two students of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. The show begins with late 19th-century oils by Moreau and some early works by Rouault and Matisse while still students of the great maitre. The exhibition continues through several decades of art spread over five rooms.
I have a bias towards Rouault, since my work involves visual representations of religious subjects (and I gave a talk last spring on his Miserere series of prints from the 1920s). I must say, nonetheless, that I thought the Rouault pieces outnumbered the Matisse ones. A variety of works are presented, from woodcuts to pastels, gouaches decoupees (notably Matisse’s colorful Jazz) to book illustrations (both artists illustrated Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal at different points in their careers). These represent a half-century of artistic production on the part of the two artists with similar artistic beginnings and quite divergeant paths.
The exposition runs until February 11.
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01.18.07
Posted in Academic, Art, Paris Life at 8:50 am by rachel
If you are unfamiliar with any late-nineteenth century art movement but Impressionism, I invite you to explore the paintings of the post-impressionist Nabi group. Similar to the art nouveau decorative aesthetic, the Nabis (a name that means “prophet” in Hebrew) broke with naturalism to paint subjects beyond the visible. Paul Sérusier even went so far as to paint a proto-abstract work inspired by Gauguin’s theories and entitled The Talisman.
The youngest member of the group, Maurice Denis, was also the group’s theorist. Denis wrote in his journal from age 15 about a rebirth in painting, and one that would push the religious experience into the modern world. In his work we see this combination of the modern aesthetic and spiritual subject matter. The Musée d’Orsay is showing room after room of his paintings from 1889 to 1941, in an exhibition that ends January 21. It is well worth the extra euro or two.
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