FrenchKate

Nov 26: Thanksgiving, 2015. The Fifth Freedom

Here's what we had to eat:

For the carnivores: A heritage bourbon red turkey, stuffing & gravy

For the pescavores: Salmon with parsley cream sauce

For the vegetarians: Chestnut & Walnut pie with vegetable gravy

For everyone: mashed potatoes, wild rice, squash & kale, Waldorf salad, cranberry-orange relish, green salad.

In case you think our menu light on vegetables, we had crudités and a cheese plate 

Pies: Pecan, Pumpkin, sour-cream & raisin

I've posted this painting, Norman Rockwell's 1942 "Freedom from Want", before, and I post it now because it looks exactly like Thanksgiving has always looked in my family. Except we had roses on the table, thanks to global distribution systems.

Look at our menu. Freedom from Want, indeed.

This painting was commissioned by the Saturday Evening Post as one of a series of four that illustrated four essential, universal human rights described by Franklin Roosevelt in his State of the Union address on 6 Jan 1941.

This was his famous "Four Freedoms" speech:

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."

"Freedom of Speech" is also an iconic image.

"Freedom of Worship" is thoroughly Christian and white. If you look closely, you will notice that people of color are there, but marginalized in the corners. They serve primarily as shadows to highlight the blond woman at center left. The diversity ranges from Protestant to Catholic, middle-aged to old. What a 40's vision of the world.

The fourth freedom, "Freedom from Fear" shows parents in Vermont tucking their children into bed after reading about the German bombing of London. Evidently Rockwell didn't much like "Freedom from Fear" because it "was based on a rather smug idea. Painted during the bombing of London, it was supposed to say, 'Thank God we can put our children to bed with a feeling of security, knowing they will not be killed in the night.'"

Reviewing the four freedoms revered by Roosevelt, I was struck by just how messed up the modern USA is. Freedom of speech was then the brave man standing to have his say, his neighbors listening. Now it is Fox News propaganda, billionaires buying elections, bigots whining about being denied their right to abuse their neighbors, and the pathological bullying of Donald Trump. 

Freedom to Worship was then people at prayer, the light that shines in darkness illuminating their faces. Today Christianity has morphed into a snarling fury of anti-science ignorance, soothing self-talk, anti-Muslim, anti-democratic bigotry, attacks on women's health and War-on-Christmas paranoia. 

Freedom from Want has been corrupted into a "gimme, gimme" society obsessed with getting ours. The symptoms are everywhere: obesity, environment degradation, a 24/7 entertainment complex where pornography and TV drama have blurred into one, bigger houses, bigger cars, more of everything, and, when stuff overwhelms us, "down-sizing" and scaling back. Meanwhile, we refuse to pay our fair share for the services we want, begrudge the minimum wage and deny that we might need to develop non-carbon based sources of fuel. Bikes? Mass transit? Communism! Threats to our American way of life!

And, faced with terrorists, with dangerous thugs who hate the freedoms that Roosevelt articulated--free speech, tolerance for other religions, abundance--Americans corrupt "freedom from fear" into the opposite of Roosevelt's vision. We pour more and more money into US military armaments, demand unrestricted access to guns lest the government tyrannize us, and take brave stances to deny safe harbor to Syrian women and children. We are so terrified of the Other, that we legalize murder with "stand your ground" laws and defend the right to gun down unarmed teenagers. We militarize the police to defend us against our fear of being afraid. 

We are unmoored. 

It seems to me that Roosevelt omitted an important fifth freedom: freedom from exploitation and discrimination. Roosevelt mentioned individual freedoms enumerated in the constitution: the government is not going to censor my freedom to say what I want or worship as I will, and the government will strive to secure "the blessings of prosperity" and peace. But in a complex free society, we also have to live with one another. And this obliges every citizen --and through us, the government--to defend the rights of other citizens--all other citizens--to speak their minds, exercise their beliefs, benefit from prosperity and live in safety. While some of this is secured in the Constitution--the 13th, 14th, 19th, 24th amendments, for example--the Fifth Freedom requires citizens to voluntarily choose to live with one another as equals. We need reciprocity, to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.

Each of us faces a moral conflict when our rights clash. The measure of our democracy and our character as citizens depends on how we resolve this conflict: Do my rights trump yours? What if I have more power than you, and I don't like your skin color, attitude or accent? What if you make me feel uncomfortable? What if you disgust me? What if I'm scared of you? What if I don't feel like sharing with the likes of you? Do I have any obligation to respect your rights if I don't feel like it, if your rights are a bother or even if I perceive your rights to be a threat to my self-interest?

Speaking metaphorically, if I have all that I can eat and more, and you have none, am I obliged to share? Going one step further, if I can exploit you, do I have the right to benefit myself at your expense? To extend the metaphor, if I am in a position to take food away from you, isn't that my right to enjoy "freedom from want"? The fundamental question is the extent to which government of, by and for the people should step in to defend the rights of all citizens against other citizens who would prey upon them. Are we equal under the law, or, as Orwell wrote, are "some pigs more equal than others?"

It is obvious to me that addition to our rights as individual, we have a collective responsibility to guard our shared freedoms. In my model of democracy, as a citizen, I do not have the right to exploit others. Even if I have the power, I have no right to trump your rights. Furthermore, government should not be used to exploit some and privilege others. In fact, in my model of democracy, the government has a responsibility to ensure that all Americans are treated equally under the law. However, given the frenzy of bigotry that has exploded since Obama became President, or, more recently, the denial that "Black Lives Matter," clearly some Americans don't agree with me. Some Americans believe that they have a god-given right to discriminate against and exploit other Americans, and what is so discouraging today is that, by golly, they are going to fight to the bitter end for that right. Government, if it tries to treat citizens equally, becomes their enemy. 

It occurs to me that what I am talking about may not be a Fifth Freedom. Maybe freedom from discrimination is implied by "Freedom from Fear." In the dark month when Roosevelt gave the Four Freedoms speech, Europe was already at war; America would be at war by the end of the year. Roosevelt envisioned a world in which "no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor." Surely the same principle applies to individuals. No individual should be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against their neighbor (even if it is just metaphorically taking food away from them.) But given how fiercely, the principle is denied, and how all other freedoms are corrupted when reciprocity is ignored, I believe it must be defended as a Fifth Freedom. Democracy fails if citizens fail to respect the rights of others.

So, gosh. Happy Thanksgiving, 2015! (***shakes head sadly***) Please pass the wine. 

Sept 7: Update on question, "Why take photos"

My brother sent me these photos taken by my Grandfather of Carcassonne on a trip to France in 1961 or so.  

Carcassonne, of course, the medieval city/fortress of everyone's dreams. Although much trashed during the Albigensian Crusade--the wicked Simon de Montfort based himself here--Carcassonne managed to survive the various vicissitudes of the next 800 years because in the 1240s, King Louis IX (1214 - 1270)--aka, St Louis--chased the inhabitants out of the fortified cité into a bastide which he had built right next door. So the old cité just just hung on, ignored.

My grandfather's photos from 1961 show the man-made ramparts clearly (the second photo) and the glacis leading up to the curtain wall (in the third photo.)

But the first distance shot is the haunting one.That's what Reims, Dijon and Beaune looked like before the progress knocked down their fortified walls.

These photos suggest another reason to take photos. Here am I, his granddaughter, pleased to see what interested my grandfather 50 years ago. Some photos are taken to share.

Sept 5: Why bother taking photographs?

How many photographs are published to the internet daily? This photography source claims that more than 200,000 photos per MINUTE are uploaded to Facebook alone. It calculates that maybe 880 billon photos were taken in 2014 alone. It boggles my mind. 

Given this surfeit of photography, then, I should not be surprised to discover that others have taken photos that are very similar to photos taken by me. That is just probabilities. And, on the other hand, perhaps I should be more astonished when I don't find a good photo taken by someone else. How could I possibly be the only one that found this subject interesting? That seems so unlikely that the answer must be that I just have not found it yet.

As a philosophic exercise, then, why even bother taking photos anymore?

One reason, of course, is to remind myself of what I have seen. My photo stream is a kind of visual memory. When I can, I will take one photo of something to remember and a second photo of the signage describing it. A month later, when details have blurred, these photos--both the sequence and the description--are incredibly helpful. I am not trying to take good photos most of the time, the photos are just my way of paying attention.

A second reason to take photos is existential. I bet that 90% of the 200,000 photos uploaded to Facebook each minute fall into this category. Photographs document our lives. Some photos in this category, selfies, are about us. These document that "I was really there" or "See us doing something that amused us" or, unpleasantly--the visual equivalent of the notorious annual Christmas letter--"be jealous of our good lives." Other photos in this category capture something deeply, generously human. We take photos of those we love: Grandchildren, children, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, cats, dogs, husbands, boyfriends, wives, girlfriends. We love them, and our photos of them make us happy. And, somewhat miraculously, the love can be shared. We respond with "awwwww" even to photos of a total stranger's loved ones.

A third category of photos are those that are purely artistic. These can transform how we understand the world. I talked at the Minnesota State Fair to an artist, Greg Graham, who uses enamel paints to create beautiful 6" by 6" miniatures of street scenes in the Twin Cities. "Why miniatures?" I asked, "Why not photographs?" He began by saying that he liked photography, too--it wasn't a contest between the two mediums--but he found that photos are "flat", a moment in time. Sometimes that was exactly the effect that he wanted, but, with his miniatures, he could create layers and textures and emphasize precise details to direct the viewer's attention. For him, his miniatures allowed a kind of conversation with the viewer. Maybe photography is best, then, when it captures something fleeting, yet true.

And, of course, photojournalism--the professional or amateur who happens to be in the right place at the right time--belongs in a category of its own. Consider the recent heart-rending photo of the three-year old who drowned in the Mediterranean while fleeing from Syria with his family. This photo has galvanized the world's attention  on the plight of refugees from the war-torn Middle East in a way that multiple news stories have not. So photographing something transitory, capturing something elusive, something newsworthy, is another reason to keep the camera at the ready.

There must be other ways to categorize photos. I just wonder what Walter Benjamin or Susan Sontag would say about the deluge of images that clog the internet in our era.

Nevertheless, check out the four photos posted here. I took the first two on our recent trip to France. The cross marks the spot in Vezelay where St Bernard preached the second Crusade to the King of France (and Eleanor of Aquitaine). The second shows the tomb of St Remi, Bishop of Reims, who baptized Clovis, King of the Franks, on Christmas Day in AD 496. 

The second two photos are from the Internet: the first, of Remi's tomb in Reims, from Wikipedia, and the second from Editions Gaud, a library documenting European historic sites. Amazingly similar, yes?

So given the similarity, the only reason for me to have taken MY photos is because I was there; the probability was high that these other photos existed. I just didn't know their whereabouts when I took mine. I also pat myself on the back for a kind of visual literacy (or lack of imagination)--reassuring myself that because the particular angle and frame that I chose was the same as that chosen by others, it must be okay.

And I remind myself, that, sometimes, my photos capture something in the light, landscape or clouds that is unique to the moment I was there. The subject of the photo may not be unique and the photo may not be that well done, but it was my moment, and that's how I remember it. Or not. The day I took the photo of the cross in Vezelay, the sky was gloriously blue. My photo didn't capture that. The photo I found on Editions Baud is actually closer to what we experienced. 

Jan 12: Inventing Human Rights

 

As I have read about the moving demonstrations in France supporting the cartoonists murdered by Islamic thugs and the republican value of freedom of speech, I have pondered my latest read, Inventing Human Rights, by historian Lynn Hunt. She traces how "men, living in societies built on slavery, subordination and seemingly natural subservience...come to imagine men not at all like them...as equals? How did equality of rights become a "self-evident" truth...?" 

I have found her research to be remarkably clarifying. It addresses, in part, the question that has been driving me as I have studied the turbulent French 19th century: How did government evolve from monarchies structured by hierarchy, inequality, obedience and discipline to democracy? 

Hunt proposes that this change was the result of the idea of human rights which emerged during the enlightenment of the mid-to late 18th century. This we already knew. What is new is her insight that "Underpinning these notions of liberty and rights was a set of assumptions about individual autonomy. To have human rights, people had to be perceived as separate individuals who were capable of exercising independent moral judgment...But for these autonomous individuals to become members of a political community based on those independent moral judgments, they had to be able to empathize with others. Everyone would have rights only if everyone could be seen as in some fundamental way alike." 

When Americans think of rights, we think of specific rights: freedom of speech, separation of church and state, the right to vote, to carry arms, but these rights are only the manifestations of the underlying assumption of autonomy. People who are capable of reasoning can think about, consider and draw their own conclusions. Because of this, autonomous individuals have the right to hold and express opinons  without fear of consequence by those with power.  

I believe the demonstrations in France last weekend revealed that the people of France have a keener understanding of the values that underlie a republican state--of government of, by and for the people--than Americans. We seem to have gotten fuzzy on the underlying principle--that our rights are inferred from an assumption that autonomous individuals can reason and draw their own conclusions. And, a corollary-that for self-government to work, we need to feel empathy with those whose experiences are different from ours. 

Sept 3: Really wonky and theoretical, sorry

From my reading on the Dreyfus Affair, I have developed a perspective which is, to the best of my knowledge, original to me.

Part of my fascination with the Dreyfus Affair arises because the conflict that divided France then echoes conflict dividing America now. The specifics differ--for example, the anti-Dreyfusards were anti-semitic, the Tea Partiers are anti- immigrant--but the underlying emotion is the same: Both felt (or feel) threatened by an ethnic group--Jewish, Hispanic--that is viewed not just as alien but inferior. Similarly, both were (or are) fearful of a republican form of government--of, by and for the people--and both sought (or seek) to limit its power.

Of course, I am not the only one fascinated by the Dreyfus Affair and tempted to view it through the lens of my era. Post World-war II, historians emphasized its anti-semitism as a fore-runner of the Third Reich. More recently, as a wave of science-rejecting religious fundamentalism has swept through the United States and Europe, historians have viewed it as a struggle for the values of the Enlightenment. Some (Ruth Harris, Piers Paul Read, Vincent Duclert) have tried to fairly represent the motives of the anti-Dreyfusard.

Anyhow, here is my contribution. Developmental Psychologists such as Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Robert Kegan have proposed stage theories to account for observed changes in cognitive development, moral reasoning and consciousness. What these theories share is the idea that our experiences in the world move us from a simple egocentrism to more complex worldviews (although individuals can and do revert to earlier stages with the right incentives.)

I've summarized and elaborated these models to create what I am calling "Kate's stages of political understanding," and I've drawn a cartoon to illustrate the stages, going from bottom to top.

On the bottom is the first stage, which I am calling "Self", in which the individual is egocentric and cannnot take the perspective of others. He or she reasons that actions are right and wrong based on the consequences: If I could be punished, then it is wrong to do. If I can get away with it, then it is okay.

At the second stage, which I have labeled "Group," the individual can take the perspective of others and forms reciprocal relationships with family and friends; actions are right if they conform to the norms of his or her group; they are wrong if they violate those norms. At this stage, individuals are "group-centric," unable to take the perspective of individuals in other groups. In fact, individuals at this stage tend to be fearful of other groups. Since they can't "see" them, they regard them as potential threats. Hence, I have drawn bristling outward arrows. It may be us against them, baby.

At the most complex stage, individuals are still members of their reciprocal groups but they have also become aware of the perspective of other groups. So as they reason about right and wrong, they search for values that apply not only to the members of their own group, but to all groups equally.

There are big issues with these stage models; the principal one--and this one is huge--is that they are theoretical and can be criticized for failing to meet basic psychological research standards of definition and measurement. For example, I can't tell you base rates, the percentage of the population, at each level. Although I have this memory that about 25% of the population reaches the Kohlberg's third level, I can't verify that descriptive fact. That indicates the deficiency of the model. And, of course, my elaboration of the model exists entirely in what I am writing here and my little drawing; there's no research there at all! Nevertheless, I carry on.

What does this have to do with the Dreyfus Affair? It seems to me that the thinking of the anti-Dreyfusards is consistent with the second level of my model and the reasoning of the Dreyfusards is consistent with the third level. So the anti-semitic, nationalistic, pro-military passions of the anti-Dreyfusards exemplify a "circling the wagons to defend ourselves against threat" kind of worldview. And the Dreyfusards arguments for justice and compassion reflect the reasoning of individuals who are, consciously or unconsciously, governed by universal values. Their arguments are grounded in the Golden Rule; "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." So the two groups are truly talking past one another, and it is not surprising that they were in conflict. If you are at stage 2, feeling under attack, reasoning at stage 3 will seem self-destructive. And if you are reasoning at stage 3, you will find the arguments of those at stage 2 to be petty, narrow-minded and mean.

And why is this useful? What does this add to our understanding of the conflict between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards. It is fair to criticize my model as just descriptive, something we already knew, but I have several reasons for valuing it, several of which I will get to in the next several days. I like it, first, because it conforms to well-known psychological models of cognitive development/moral reasoning/consciousness. The first step of science is description.

Nov 28: note on Gonzalés, Gonzalès, Gonzàles, Gonzáles?

I'm really trying to get this straight, but I've seen Eva Gonz_l_s's name spelt in each of these ways. I'll go with the Musée D'Orsay's spelling (because they are French and I trust their knowledge of art) of "Gonzalès," but I really don't know!

Sept 28: Back to basics

Over the past week, I have been searching for a better understanding, for insight, on the question of when and why art theory decided that children in baths or family members at lunch were proper artistic subjects. The answer to that question is related to my on-going reflection on "What is Art?"

And I woke up this morning with a start. In fact, I almost cried out, "Janson,!!" as the memory hit. And twenty minutes later, I had pulled my copy--this would be my college copy--of Janson's "History of Art" from the bookshelf where I have stored it for roughly 50 years, valued but neglected, keeping it for the day when I needed to look up something about art. Today, it turns out, was the day.

  H.W.Janson's "History of Art" was first published in 1962, one of those huge accomplishments that dominates the field for generations of scholars. My aged copy from 1967 is the 11th printing of the first edition. and the book is currently in its 8th edition, having sold millions of copies in 15 different languages. According to Amazon, this book is "the classic and seminal introduction to art of the Western world"  which established "the canon of art history for many generations of scholars." ArtNews, however, objects that while it "spurred a revolution in the teaching of Art history," Janson's "partriarchal model of Art History...pioneered the celebrity model of art history. There were artists who mattered, he argued, and those who didn’t." Needless to say, such "Martha Stewart elitism" will be criticized today, but even so, you may ask, did it tell me anything useful about the Impressionists?

I don't know yet! I made the mistake of starting the Introduction, where Janson takes up the fundamental question, "What is Art?" and for the time being, there I'm stuck. I'm a sucker for that question.

Janson starts by proposing that Art, at least the visual arts, involve a tangible thing made by human hands. But then he uses Picasso's "Bulls Head," 1943, (which Picasso created from the handlebars and seat of a bicycle) to test that hypothesis. In this example, the objet d'art is ridiculously simple. What makes this a work of art is not the skill with which it is made, but the leap of imagination by which Picasso "saw" a bull's head in these simple objects. So, it is both the idea AND the creation of the object that defines something as art. 

And Janson goes on to contrast the creative process --a "need-to-take-a-chance," an "urge to penetrate unknown realms, to achieve something original"--with craftsmanship, when the craftsman or manufacturer knows "exactly what he wants to produce from the very outset...and is sure of what he is doing at every step." According to Janson, then, "Originality, then, is what distinguishes art from craft." But Janson admits that the difficulty is defining what originality is, when "originality is always relative."

 To illustrate this point, Janson presents Manet's 1863 naked lady at a picnic painting, "Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe," which caused a huge scandal at its time. He suggests that Manet was inspired by a 1515 copper engraving inspired by Raphael. From this, Janson proposes that all artists start out on the level of craft and, having absorbed the artistic tradition of their time, having been taught the skills and techniques, the "established ways of seeing," a few transcend to become "creators in their own right." The others, he condescends, those with "gifts...too modest for painting, sculpture, or architecture" can become an "illustrator, typographer, or interior decorator...engaging in artistic "pursuits [that] stand somewhere between "pure" art and "mere" craft."

Okay, so I want to stop.... Janson lost me right there. Janson goes on to argue that art also requires an audience and that the audience need to be experts who share an informed love of works of art. This seems a very convenient position for an art history professor with a job to do. But blah, blah, blah! The whole Artist as Hero meme has never done much for me. I agree that art involves technique and skill, the creation of something tangible, and I'll agree that originality, though hard to define, is a part of it. But...what a pompous mid-century attitude, a hangover of the Romantic notion of Emo Werther. 

But take Monet. Here is an artist of the first rank, who started selling caricatures when he was 15. He rose early every day, he painted prodigiously, he painted the same subject over and over. He was a disciplined craftsman, and, yes, what made Monet a first rate painter was not just the technique, but the ideas, and yet, if you look at other artists of his era, those ideas were not unique to Monet. It isn't just his ideas, it was the way in which he executed them, and his execution was a function of his disciplined habits. And his productivity, his ideas, his techniques, all of those, I think, are a function of the ...(I can't believe I am about to say this!)...of the economic system in which he worked (compared to say, the patronage system under which earlier artists worked.) The rise of a wealthy middle-class (especially in America) eager to acquire "Art" as a way to signal their Culture provided a market, and, having gained celebrity status (partly by living so long,) Monet's reputation as a first rate artist is sustained in part because the cult of celebrity agrees that he is a first rate artist.

1. Picasso, Bull's Head. 1943 (in wikipedia, art critic, Eric Gibson, says that this piece is "an assertion of the transforming power of the human imagination at a time when human values were under siege.")

2. Manet, Le dejeuner sur l'herbe, 1863

3. Manet's inspiration for the above, Raimondi's copper etching of Raphael's Judgment of Paris, 1515

4. a close-up of the corner of Raimondi's etching

 

August 27: Greasy food and ugly shoes

As my husband found lunch in the Food Building, I sat on a chair outside and reflected on footgear at the fair. "What were they thinking?" I asked myself as people passed by. The footgear was relentlessly sportive. It was as if fairgoers were all going to run a marathon, rather than spending an afternoon walking at a leisurely pace.

The mothers of young children, as a category, had the most fashionable, yet sensible shoes.

May 30: A last note on St Edmund

I have difficulty believing that the relics of St Edmund were simply left behind when Prince Louis abruptly broke the siege of Toulouse in 1218. It makes more sense to suppose that the body of St Edmund was delivered to Saint-Sernin as a diplomatic gift from the King of France on some special occasion, now forgotten.

For example, consider the day that Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, signed the Treaty of Paris in 1229, the treaty which formally ended the Albigensian Crusade, married off his heir to the King's brother and guaranteed the end of independent Occitan culture. Doesn't that seem like a good day for the King of France to offer the relics of St Edmund to Saint-Sernin, a very gracious gesture under the circumstances? "Look," the gift would communicate, "here's the body of another king, a saint, who got his head chopped off while defending his country against invaders." The message would not be lost on Raymond VII.

The Hundred Years War provided other occasions when a special diplomatic gift might have been welcome. For example, in 1350 when the walls of Toulouse--knocked down after the Treaty of Paris--were rebuilt (at the city's expense) to defend the city against the English. There would be a kind of delightful revenge in having the bones of England's patron saint resting on the French side of the border. Or in 1420, when the King muscled in on Toulouse's autonomy by establishing his law court there, the gift of a saint famed for defending his kingdom against invaders would have special significance..

But this is just speculation on my part. The tradition is that the remains were found by Toulousains pillaging the camp left when Crown Prince Louis abruptly raised the siege of Toulouse and departed north with his army.

But Edmund was of greater significance to the English than I can appreciate. Before forcing King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, the barons made a pilgrimage to Bury St Edmund and quarrelled over who would carry St Edmund's standard. In 1415, King Henry V rode to Agincourt under St Edmund's standard.

A quick google search turns up arguments that his body resided at Bury St Edmund until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1549. Anything else seems terribly wrong to these modern Englishmen. They prefer to believe that the body was buried on English soil and lost to time at the dissolution. Other Englishman argue that St. Edmund should be restored as patron saint of England, replacing St. George (who emerged only in the middle of the 14th century.)

Who should be the Patron Saint of England is an English decision, but arguing that the French didn't carry off the body of St. Edmund seems wishful thinking. In 1539, when envoys of Henry VIII came to Bury St. Edmund to open St Edmund's casket and remove and burn the relics, they found only a few nail clippings and hair. I assume the monks at the Abbey faceda hard choice in 1217 after the French rode off with the body of the Saint who had brought fame and riches to the Abbey. They could on as if nothing had changed or they could go public with the news that the relic of Patron Saint of England had been downgraded from well-preserved body to nail clippings. Not checking inside the casket for several hundred years seems to be prudent self-interest, under the circumstances.

But one mystery remains. In 1901, at the instigation of the Pope, the relics of St Edmund were repatriated from Saint Sernin to England, intended for the high altar of Westminster Cathedral, but they have been housed at the Fitzalan chapel at Arundel Castle, near Brighton in Sussex, to this day. In the 1980s, a historical commission was formed to validate the relics, but the only hint of what this commission found is an elusive comment on the internet that "they were found to be not quite what people supposed so the French bishop won on points."So what did carbon dating find?

photo 1: a remnant of the 1350 wall of Toulouse

photo 2: the gatehouse at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds

photos 3 & 4: Arundel Castle in Sussex

last image, three gold crowns on a blue background: St Edmunds standard

 

Nov 3: Digression

Writing about charming France and blighted France--an implicit comment on what ones chooses to photograph--reminded me of a 2007 essay in the New York Times by Errol Morris (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?; I read it with great attention when it was published days after our return from France.

The essay is a three part investigation of an old photographic mystery: Did Victorian photographer Roger Fenton stage a war-torn Crimean landscape by adding cannonballs to the road in a photograph  (the first image here)that is famous as the first example of war photography? And if he did, was that wrong?

In the third part of this essay, Errol ponders the question of whether staging elements of a photograph--moving elements around to enhance a photograph's aesthetic--is any different from simply excluding things from the image in the first place.

To illustrate his point, Morris did something which I just love. The second photo here is an 1860 photo by Roger Fenton of the Long Walk, Windsor,  (an old hunting path 2.5 miles long.) Morris asks the reader to imagine that, by chance, on the day in 1860 when Roger Fenton took the photo of the Long Walk, there happened to be an elephant there, but Fenton chose not to photograph the elephant because his goal was to photograph the landscape. Maybe his attention was so focused on the landscape that he didn't notice the elephant. Morris wonders if that kind of choice, the choice to exclude something from a photo, is any more deceptive than moving cannonballs around to enhance it? 

The reason I love this image of the elephant on the Long Walk at Windsor, however, is that, while whimsical, it reminds me that that every image--not just photographs, but also ads, a sitcom, films, a documentary, a news broadcast, whatever--is filtered through someone's lens.  Art can never be completely objective. There is always an intention behind the act of creation; Someone--a photographer, artist, writer, editor--has chosen to privilege some things in his or her work and exclude others.

One has to always ask oneself if there is an elephant? Did someone chose to exclude it? Did someone not even see it?