FrenchKate

Feb 10: Carpets

The Musée des Tissus modern gallery has a very modern gallery--I suspect that it is an addition to the original Hôtel de Villeroy--in which rugs, those large scale textiles, are displayed.

On one wall I admired a fragment a typical Savonnerie carpet  from around 1800. The knotted-pile technique and the design (center medallion and lots of swirls and flowers) is very French. Known as "Savonnerie" because these rugs were originally manufactured in a former soap factory--"savon" is the French word for soap, of course--these carpets have been produced since the 17th century. They are still produced today, in fact, under the auspices of the state-run Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory.

On the opposite wall were carpets of a very different design. These cheerful, geometric carpets were produced between 1981 and 1988 by an international group of designers--French, English, Italian--who called themselves the Memphis Group. Based in Milan, the Memphis group produced postmodern furniture "characterized by ephemeral design featuring colorful and abstract decoration as well as asymmetrical shapes" (according to wikipedia) that has had a huge impact on later designers, though at the time the style was "described as 'bizarre,' 'misunderstood.' 'loathed,' and 'a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price."  (wikipedia, again.) It was "design as cultural criticism, rather than as a functional tool or statement of modernist intent." One of the founding designers described it as"a way of life, of transferring into the world of the western home the culture of rock music, travel and a certain excess".

The works of the Memphis group have come back into fashion after musician David Bowie's collection was auctioned after his death in 2016 (for £1,387,000.) 

While I recognize the design style--it has been highly influential--I knew nothing of the Memphis group until this visit to the Musée des Tissus.

Feb 9: Lyon's Museum of Textiles

The day after our exciting encounter with the Gilets Jaunes, we again crossed the Saône River from Vieux Lyon to Presqu'île. This time, we were bound for Lyon's Musée des Tissus; Lyon, of course, is a city whose prosperity was built on the silk industry so this museum is a repository of something very key to understanding Lyon. My trusted Michelin guide gives the museum a rare three stars***, describing it as "the pride of the Lyon people, and a veritable 'repository' of decorative fabrics."

The museum is housed in the Hôtel de Villeroy, a splendid hôtel particuliére, worthy of Paris. Built in 1730, it was the home of several generations of the Ducs de Villeroy, governors of the province, until the last duke was guillotined in 1794. After that, it housed a school, and then, in 1945, it became the Musée des Tissus.

From the street, one passes through the entrance pavilion (now the museum shop) and, entering the court d'honneur, come face to face with the main house-a beautiful example of French classical architecture: everything symmetrical, three levels, nine windows per level, exquisite iron work.

The interior of the house has been repurposed as a museum, but retains some fireplaces, some wood paneled rooms and some marble floors. A very grand staircase defines the front hall. 

In the 18c the house was surrounded by gardens-- long gone--but in its heyday, it must have been a very agreeable residence. 

The museum's collection was started in 1864, and largely consists of silk samples, silk dresses and suits, and portraits of important individuals in the Lyonnais silk community. 

 I was surprised to discover that the collection doesn't provide information on the manufacture of silk-- looms, techniques, and such--just room upon room of silk. It may sound too special purpose, but the silks are extraordinary.

A special exhibition of Yves St-Laurent designer dresses was attracting crowds when we were there; St-Laurent, who was inspired by Lyonnais silks, worked closely with local silk merchants and manufacturers. Other designers as well...for example, the scarves sold by high-end merchant, Hermes, are still made in Lyon.

In any case, the museum fully deserved its three stars. 

Jan 13: Revolutionary Lyon

The Musée Historique de Lyon had a particularly informative collection from the Revolutionary period; this may be because the Revolution was particularly ugly in Lyon.

In 1793 as the chaos of the revolutionary period spiraled into violence--Louis XVI was guillotined in January , Marie Antoinette in October--the citizens of Lyon chose to side with the Girondins, a moderate political faction who hesitated to kill the king and sought to contain the revolutionary chaos. They held the majority in the National Convention until May and June of 1793, when, blamed for government's failure to quickly realize the promises of revolution, popular uprisings led the Paris National Guard to purge the Girondins from the National Convention. Many were guillotined.

Because Lyon supported the purged Girondins, it was declared to be in a state of revolutionary war against the National Convention, who sent an army to punish it. Besieged for over two months; Lyon surrendered in October, 1793. The Convention ordered that Lyon's name be changed to "Liberated City," proclaiming that "Lyons made war on Liberty; Lyons no longer exists."

In November, two men arrived in Lyon to execute the reprisals of the Convention, the sinister Jean Fouché, "the Executioner of Lyon", and Jean-Marie Collot d' Herbois. They formed the "Temporary Commission for Republican Supervision" and brought in two thousand soldiers from the Parisian Revolutionary Army  to help them terrorize the Lyonnais.

I'll let wikipedia describe the first horror these two inflicted on the city. "On 4 December, 60 men, chained together, were blasted with grapeshot on the plain de Brotteaux outside the city, and 211 more the following day. Grotesquely ineffective, these mitraillades resulted in heaps of mutilated, screaming, half-dead victims, who were finished off with sabres and musket fire by soldiers physically sickened at the task."

The citizens of Lyon rose up to protest the executions, leading to a massacre before the hôtel de ville on Dec 14. Soon after, Fouché and Collot d'Herbois began to use the more normal means of execution--the guillotine (set up in Place Bellecour) and firing squads on the plain of Brotteaux outside the city. Wikipedia again: "Fouché, claiming that "Terror, salutary terror, is now the order of the day here... We are causing much impure blood to flow, but it is our duty to do so, it is for humanity's sake," called for the execution of 1,905 citizens....From late 1793 until spring 1794, every day "batch after batch of bankers, scholars, aristocrats, priests, nuns, and wealthy merchants and their wives, mistresses, and children" were taken from the city jails to the plain of Brotteaux field, tied to stakes, and dispatched by firing squads or mobs." Collot d'Herbois began to dismantle the city itself.

Returning to Paris in April 1794, Fouché justified his actions with a classic authoritarian statement: "The blood of criminals fertilises the soil of liberty and establishes power on sure foundations". He would lead the overthrow of Robespierre in July 1794, and eventually would become Napoleon's minister of police and one of the most powerful men in France.

Collot d'Herbois, guilty of excessive slaughter and destruction, would be accused of complicity with Robespierre, condemned and transported to French Guiana, where he died of yellow fever in 1796.

A nightmarish time.

Image 1 & 2: Two representations of the Massacre before the Hôtel de Ville on Dec 14, 1793, in the Musée Historique de Lyon

Image 3: A display of a phrygian cap and revolutionary cockades. I've never seen these actual emblems of the revolution before.

Image 4: A polychromed wood bust depicting "La Republique" in her red phrygian cap.

January 12, 2020: Musée Gadagne

I love museums that provide the history of the town we are visiting. In Lyon, we could actually see that museum--Musée Gagdagne--from our hotel room. In the first photo, it is the dark terra cotta building on the left.

The Musée Historique de Lyon is one of two museums housed in the Gadagne mansion, the largest Renaissance residence in Vieux Lyon. Dating to the 16th century, the building had been cut up into apartments (nearly 60 families lived there) by the start of the 20th century. The city of Lyon purchased it in 1921 to house the History Museum of Lyon, and it underwent a ten-year renovation at the start of the 21st century, reopening to the public just ten years ago. 

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to explore the second museum housed there, the international Museum of Marionnettes. I think that would have been a delight. My guidebook describes a collection including Guignol, a number of glove puppets, and "an outstanding collection of string and rod puppets and shadow figures for France, England, Belgium, Holland, Venice, Turkey, Russia and the Far East." But we had time for only one, and we chose the history of Lyon. Next time.

Alas, our choice of museum also meant that we missed some of the best surviving architectural features--an elaborate 17th century ceiling installed by Andre Falconet, doctor to Queen Margaret Valois, Henri IV's first wife, and a grand staircase.

But the Museum of local history was excellently done: Roman artifacts, sculpture from lost churches, background on the silk industry and local notables, and an especially fine collection of Revolution artifacts. It had four rooms with surviving architectural elements: Lime plaster, ocher and Sienna highlights, interior wooden shutters, terracotta floor tiles, a fine fireplace. 

More on the collections tomorrow.

Image 1: the view from our hotel window

Image 2 & 3: The courtyard in 1921 (when Lyon purchased the building) and today

Image 4: a room focusing on the silk industry

Image 5: A room dedicated to the 17th century, including a stunningly detailed model of the town hall.

Image 6: one of the "remarkable" rooms, the set of 16th century rooms that have been remarkably well preserved/restored. According to the website of the musée, "Live a unique experience through this set of rooms, which will immerse you in the atmosphere and the decorations of the 16th and 17th century."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOV 26: Reviewing our great trip to France (Nov 13)

Nov 13 (continued)

We intended to skip Vienne's Musée des Beaux Arts, but after I so enjoyed the lapidary museum housed in Saint Pierre, we decided to make a quick visit. We knew we wouldn't do it justice--we had to get on the road--but I wanted to see it for myself. 

Our original decision to skip was influenced by how the  Musée des Beaux Arts was promoted by the worthies of Vienne: not at all. My map indicated that it was housed in the building pictured in the first photo, but the building itself had no signs advertising that, yes, this was the right place. In fact, the building looked abandoned. It was so devoid of signage and activity that I assumed the collections had been moved recently to some different location (something we have encountered before in France.) 

But no...

Earlier in the day, before the musée opened, we went inside to scout around. We found a plain sign for the Musée des Beaux Arts--probably from 1895--on a door at the top of a dusty staircase. It didn't seem promising. But, after Saint Pierre, off we went to see what we would find there.

So what did we find?

The musée consists of a small collection of artifacts neatly arranged in three rooms, still in  their 1895 display cases. The collection quickly chronicled the history of Vienne: pre-history, Gaul, Roman, a buried treasure trove of silver objects from the Gallo-Roman period, medieval tiles, a lovely collection of 18th century French ceramics...in the last room, we found mediocre art arranged in the 19th century manner. We were, of course, the only people there.

Nonetheless, it was worth the visit, brief though it was. The collection was a bit haphazard, but well-documented, and it included some pieces of genuine local interest. Had I had more time, I would have spent it there quite happily.

But we had to get on the road to reach our next destination: Valence and Maison Pic.

Image 1 & 2: The building housing the Musée des Beaux-arts et Archéologie today and 150 years ago. Originally build in 1823 as a grain market, it was converted to a covered market in the 1870s, and  the museum and a library were installed on the upper floor. Later, the market was gone, and the library was moved to the ground floor. The museum was laid out as we now see it in 1895. The library moved into a new building in 2012; this--plus the neglected building--makes me suspect that something is also in the works for the Musée des Beaux-arts et Archéologie. 

A couple things strike me about this chronology. First, the repurposing of buildings over time always interests me. Second, the museum was built from private collections donated to the city; the late 19th century was marked by a sense of civic pride (also reflected in nationalism) and an emerging consciousness of history. In addition, the prosperity of the Belle Epoque made these collections possible. 

Image 3: The impressive bronze statue thought to be of Caius Julius Pacatianus, a Viennois noble who governed several provinces under the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus, c200 AD.  Few ancient bronze statues survived the economic pressure to melt them down; Bronze is just too valuable. This one was found in 220 pieces in 1874 in a garden in Vienna, buried two meters deep. Mme Peletin, the owner of the garden, gave the fragments to the museum, and eighty years later, thanks to the efforts of the museum's director, the fragments were handed over  to archeologists in Nancy to reassemble. As you can imagine, putting the pieces together presented a tough puzzle--the head was too small, the whole thing weighed over 200 kilo, and the fragments gave no indication of the size of the figure, but finally, 895 hours later and glued together with 50 kilos of resin and melted glass, the statue returned to take pride of place in the collection of Vienne's Musée des Beaux-arts et Archéologie.

Image 4: The Fine Arts room, still laid out as it was when installed in 1895

Image 5: An interesting artistic imaging of Roman Vienne by artist and amateur archeologist Etienne Rey, done around 1860. 

Image 6: The tusk of a wooly Mammoth found near Vienne

Image 7: the fragments of the bronze statue before restoration (!)

November 7: Day 5--Alésia, where Caesar defeated the Gauls in 52BC

Day 5 and another stunning Gallic site, or rather, four different, related sites: 1) a museum, 2) a recreation of Roman siege fortifications, 3) the ruins of the Gallo-Roman city that prospered after Alésia, and 4) a statue to Vercingetorix, the Gaul who had led the Gauls against Caesar, erected by Emperor Napoleon III in 1865. Each of these deserves its own post, and, alas, I don't have time for that while traveling. Here are brief reactions:

The museum is impressive. I've never seen anything quite like it. Architecturally extraordinary, the museum is single purpose. All the exhibits focus on the Siege of Alésia, the social and political context in which that battle took place, its aftermath and the rediscovery of the Gauls in the 19th century and the re-appropriation of the Gauls for all sorts of political purposes in the 20th. It richly consolidates and presents of all kinds of scholarship.

Even the setting of the museum is relevant. Lying in a plain in front of Mount Auxois, the museum's location--and the fragment of Roman fortifications that have been recreated--makes the scale of Caesar's military operation clear. In two months, the Romans constructed siege fortifications roughly 13 miles in circumference on the hills surrounding Mount Auxois (where the Gauls had taken refuge.) The scale is staggering.

Up a twisty road on Mont Auxois, the remains of the Gallo-Roman city that prospered after Vercingetorix's defeat is also well worth a visit. Small, but very complete, the city is in a stunning setting...on top of a hill with 360-degree views.

Turn left at the intersection instead of right (to the Gallo-Roman city) in Alisé-Sainte-Reine and climb up a road that is little more than a single lane--up and up-- to reach the statue of Vercingetorix erected in 1865 by Emperor Napoleon III (who sponsored much of the research into the Gauls at both Bibracte and Alésia.)

More details will have to wait.

My experiment in the previous post (sending a photo directly from my phone/camera) was so-so. I've reposted the image here. It gives a sense of the setting in the plain before Mont Auxois.

Image 1 is view of the Roman fortifications taken from the museum. The plain is clear. The mountain in the distance is where the Gallic reinforcements gathered, unable to break through the Roman line to aid their allies.

Image 2 &3 were taken at the Gallo-Roman city. Ruins are not all that interesting, but the view!!!! We were fortunate in our timing and the weather. 

Image 4 is the statue of Vercingetorix erected in 1865. This was the site of the Gallo-Roman oppidum that was besieged by Caesar.

Image 5 is a reposting of the Musée d'Alésia, the interpretive center. Yes, those are trees on top.

 

Nov 21: Dinosaurs!

In the morning we walked the 1.5 miles down 5th avenue--once known as "Millionaire's mile"--from our hotel to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History--one of the top five natural history museums in the US. Its collection includes 22 million specimens (of which about one million are catalogued online.) 10,000 are on display at any given time.

It has a fabulous dinosaur collection-the third largest collection of mounted, displayed dinosaurs in the US. Among other things, the collection includes the world's only fossils of a juvenile Apatosaurus, and the world's first specimen of a T Rex, purchased by Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie even has a dinosaur named for him: "diplodicus carnegii" found by museum scientists in 1899. The large Apatosaurus (76 feet long) is named for his wife, Apatosaurus louisae.

Some of the exhibition was under construction, but we got to appreciate the Louisae and the juvenile apatosaurus and the stegosaurus  in the main hall, and the T. Rex of record. In the main hall, with just a little imagination, you can imagine yourself in the Jurassic. The hall has been laid out so one moves through the various periods--"Dinosaurs in their time"--Triassic, early Jurassic

I was fascinated by some of the smaller dinosaurs, such as this one with feathers.

After lunch at the "Porch" we visited the Carnegie Library where a very pleasant librarian took time to show us around. Originally, Carnegie funded the building to house a library, the museum of art, the museum of natural history and a recital hall, but it quickly became apparent that the various collections needed more space. 

We got a cup of coffee at the coffee shop and spent some time upstairs in the "Pennsylvania room" where we chatted with the librarian and enjoyed a collection of historic photos of Pittsburgh--including one taken when the smog was so thick that even at noon the streetlights were on. Ah, those were the days!

Then we went back to the Museum of Natural History, re-appreciated the dinosaur hall, admired the gems collection and a small collection of early 20th century dioramas (similar to the Bell Museum) and bought puppets in the gift shop.

Again, we closed down the museum and walked the 2.2 miles (we thought it was 1 mile) in gathering darkness through Schenley Park, past the conservatory, to my son's apartment. Dinner at a very nice Japanese restaurant, where I made a conscious choice to eat crab legs so I took about twice as long as everyone else to eat dinner. After the dinosaurs, the crab legs had a kind of prehistoric vibe.

Back to our hotel via Uber. The next morning we woke up and took an Uber to the airport for an uneventful trip home.

 

June 4: "impressive and extensive"

Since our time in Jerusalem, we returned to Rishon, spent a day in Caesarea (the extensive ruins of a port that Herod built as a tribute to his patron, Caesar); enjoyed a delightful party with my son-in-law's extended family; travelled by bus to Jerusalem to sample the extraordinary Israel Museum, and then travelled by train to Akko, or Acco, or medieval Acre to view the impressive crusader ruins here. Everything we have seen has been impressive and extensive.

We are stalled in Acco for an extra day because a lesser Jewish holiday closed down the trains until sunset. We considered a number of options to get us back to Rishon (rent a car, take a taxi, have someone pick us up) and decided that the simplest course is just arriving close to midnight.

Our hotel, our wonderful boutique hotel, is allowing us to check out at 8:00 PM, so we can have a shower and drinks in the crusader-era wine cellar before we go. We leave for Paris tomorrow (June 5).

image #1. The pool in Herod's palace in Caesarea. This was a 1st century AD infinity pool, With the marble, the columns, the mosaics, it must have been stunning.

image #2. Administrative offices. The excavations in Caesarea include a harbor, temples, a circus, a theatre, baths, hippodrome, aqueduct, a network of roads and administrative offices, Herod's palace, a law court where the apostle Paul, a Roman citizen, may have appealled to Caesar after one of his arrests. Not Pompeii, but impressive and extensive.

image #3. My daughter & son in law plus his cousins and grandmother. A very handsome, impressive and extensive family.

image #4. The human shaped coffins from a 13th century BCE Canaanite cemetary. These were stunning.

Image #5. Jewish women's dresses from the 19th century. We estimate that you need about three or four four-hour days to do justice to the Israel Museum. It is not just extensive, but its collection is of the highest quality imaginable. We spent about three hours in the antiquities section, dashed through the Jewish women's clothing collection (which was right across the hall), galloped through the sculpture garden, glanced at the model of the 2nd BCE era Jerusalem, and tipped our hats at the Dead Sea Scrolls. We spent about 30 minutes in the great gift store as well.

Image #6. The crusader-era dining hall of the Knights Hospitaller in Acco. After the Mamluks defeated the crusaders in 1291, they razed the city of Acre to ensure that the crusaders would never return.

In the 17th century, the Ottoman Turks returned and built a new city on top of the old one. Since 1955, archeologists have been digging out the crusader city, which had been preserved despite the debris and rubble. Room by room, they have been excavating the "Crusader Pompeii", and it is quite astonishing. This hall, for example, which was built between 1191 and 1291, is in the latest Gothic style.

 

 

June 19-24: Highlights from the past week because I can’t keep up

Between poor internet connections and prodigious activity, I have fallen so far behind in my commentary that I don't see how I can bring FrenchKate up to date one day at a time.

We have done so much! We have visited gardens, big and small, monastic, educational, formal, grand. We have rested in chapels found in sacred places, searched for Romanseque architecture in churches and pondered monastic ruins. We have been suitably impressed by a number of châteaux and enjoyed museums of art, local history and regional traditions. We have shopped in markets, ateliers and boutiques, explored wonderful little towns and enjoyed the fête de la musique in lovely Honfleur.

  My brother-in-law--whose photography I admire greatly--speaks of historical France,  picture book France and tourist France, and we have been in all three! Over the course of our trip, we have been moving a bit further away from tourist France—at least Anglo-American tourist France—in each new location. At the moment, we are in tiny Lyons-la-Forêt, where, I believe, we have been identified as "the American couple" because the staff at various restaurants all seem to know who we are.

We have eaten wonderful meals night after night in Culinary France; I have discovered raw oysters on the half-shell. My husband has been doing justice to the four cheeses of Normandy: Camembert, Neufchatel, Pont d’Eveque and Livarot. We’ve both been enjoying apple cidre. So we have been having a very happy time.

The weather has been consistently cool and gray with fleeting patches of sunlight. Even the Normans are complaining. We keep observing rather sad arrangements of tables and chairs set up outside, hopeful, but empty, glistening with damp.

I am amused because I believe we have missed all of the places that I previewed on FrenchKate before we left. Places were unexpectedly closed, further away than imagined or days were too full. But, on the other hand, we have seen many things that I did not anticipate--the tourist's discovery--so it all worked out.  

Here are some highlights:

imges 1, 2 & 3: The musée de Baron Henri Gerard in Bayeux. Housed in the old Archibishop’s palace, it has been closed for renovation for a number of years. It reopened just in March. It is one of those stylish museums that I so admire in France and gave me a good sense of the history of Bayeux. I was delighted to discover that Bayeux was a center for lace--exquisite lace--and ceramics.

images 4 & 5: The gardens at the Château de Vendreuve. We arrived too late to tour the château (alas!), a lovely example of 18th century country architecture, but we able to enjoy the extensive gardens, and it didn't rain the entire time we were there. The path led us through a variety of gardens based on (or at least inspired by) 18th century originals. Notable were its whimsical features, such as showers of water that were triggered when you stepped in the right place (for example, the little doves on the red bridge.) It felt very 18th century.

images 6, 7 & 8: Lovely Honfleur is a fishing port whose 17th & 18th century buildings were spared in World War 2. Its most famous feature is “le vieux basin,” a harbor extended by Colbert in 1681, but the entire town is charming, a maze of half-timbered buildings. The light is brilliant. The town has a connection with the pre-Impressionist painter, Eugéne Boudin, who introduced many young artists to the remarkable silvery light and sunsets of Normandy. The town today is a warren of art galleries.

We particularly enjoyed an enthusiastic French band playing 60s and 70s rock-and-roll on the Fêtes de la Musique. They were having a great time, and we were having a great time, too.

June 9:...and the rains continue

Sunday was a very, very quiet day. Between rain and jetlag-induced disrupted sleep, we stayed in our pleasant apartment until mid-afternoon.

We walked over to the Musée des Augustins to ponder their excellent collection of capitals, especially those from the cloister of Saint Sernin. I remember how underwhelmed I was when I saw these Romanesque capitals for the first time. The collection, by and large, comes from three demolished cloisters--those of Saint-Sernin, the Daurade and the Cathedral of Saint Etienne--and I did not know the history of Toulouse well enough then to discriminate among the three churches, and furthermore, if you are accustomed to large scale sculpture, there is something rather droll, even surreal, about these eye-height capitals on their plain red pedestals in that vast space.

But my appreciation has grown with greater knowledge. And today it was a thrill to see the twenty-two capitals spared in the destruction of the cloister of Saint Sernin.

I got into trouble with the museum guard. I borrowed a pen from my husband to inventory the number of capitals of each type, and it turns out that pens are forbidden. Of course, the moment she pointed it out, very hesitantly in a melange of English and French, I realized what the concern is. Treasures have been marred at other museums by real pen-wielding thugs. She had even called for back-up, just in case, a competent looking curator who no doubt spoke English.

The garden in the cloister at Augustins just gets more and more satisfying. We were fortunate to find the sweetly fragrant old roses in full bloom. This is the prettiest setting you can imagine, this ordered green space--neatly organized into flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables and vines--with brick walls and the gothic columns of the cloister as backdrop.

I never tire of the musée des Augustins. We spent most of the afternoon there. In the evening, we walked to a friend's house for dinner, crossing the canal du midi as still as glass. The bridge over which we crossed, was one of the old ones--the romantically named Pont des Demoiselles--but this is not an attractive stretch of the canal.

From our friends, we learned that the circus event last night had been cancelled due to the threat of rain, but clearly not everyone got the word. More substantively, we also learned that the opposition to the gay marriage/adoption bill was organized primarily by conservative Catholic housewives who worked their social networks, an interesting insight. Our friends support gay marriage but said they experienced intense pressure to oppose it.

1) the gargoyles in the cloister. My favorite thing at des Augustins.

2 & 3) the capitals from Saint Sernin. I believe the name of the single capital could be casually translated as "birds in bondage". The collection has six of this pattern.

4 & 5) views of the cloister garden

6) the canal du midi