Edouard Manet: Boats and Ships

From the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France. Most of them are not on display.

Edouard Manet, Marine, date indéterminée, aquarelle,

H. 11 ; L. 21 cm,

Don Mme Julien Pillaut, 1961, © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay)/ Rachel Prat

Edouard Manet, Deux voiliers en mer, date indéterminée, mine de plomb ; papier vergé,

H. 9,2 ; L. 14 cm,

Achat, 1954, © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/ DR

Edouard Manet, Trois voiliers, date indéterminée,mine de plomb ; papier vergé,

H. 9 ; L. 14,1 cm,

Achat, 1954,© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/ DR

Edouard Manet, Deux voiliers en mer, date indéterminée, mine de plomb ; papier vergé,

H. 12,6 ; L. 8,5 cm,

Achat, 1954, © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/ DR

Edouard Manet, Croquis de voilier, date indéterminée, mine de plomb,

H. 14,3 ; L. 9,5 cm,

Legs Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, 1927,© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/ Michèle Bellot

Edouard Manet, Bateaux en mer, soleil couchant, en 1868, tableau, huile sur toile,

H. 42,0 ; L. 94,0 cm.,

Œuvre retrouvée en Allemagne après la seconde guerre mondiale et confiée à la garde des musées nationaux en 1951, © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)/ image RMN-GP

Edouard Manet, Marine avec voiliers au clair de lune, date indéterminée, lavis d’encre de Chine ; mine de plomb, H. 19,7 ; L. 17,9 cm,

Achat, 1954, © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Michèle Bellot

Brioche Paintings

I like brioches.

I like smelling them, I like viewing them, I like gently squeezing them, I like tasting them.

I also like paintings of brioches. I found five plus one of them, by Chardin, Manet and Picasso.

The sequence begins with Chardin and continues with three brioche paintings by Manet. The fifth painting has oysters as its main subject, but there is one brioche on the side, so I included it. The Picasso painting completes the sequence.

La Brioche, Chardin, 1763, Oil on canvas

Dimensions: Height: 0.47 m; Height with frame: 0.58 m; Width: 0.56 m; Width with frame: 0.675 m

Musée du Louvre, Paris

The Brioche, Edouard Manet (French, Paris 1832–1883 Paris)

1870, Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 25 5/8 x 31 7/8 in. (65.1 x 81 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Manet reportedly called still life the “touchstone of the painter.” From 1862 to 1870 he executed several large-scale tabletop scenes of fish and fruit, of which this is the last and most elaborate. It was inspired by the donation to the Louvre of a painting of a brioche by Jean Siméon Chardin, the eighteenth-century French master of still life.

It seems natural that Manet, who lavished attention on the painterly quality of his pictures, should be attracted to the work of Chardin, a master of illusionistic texture. Although Manet made several large-scale still lifes of fruit and fish in the mid-1860s, this work, of 1870, was inspired by the arrival at the Louvre of Chardin’s painting of a brioche.

Like Chardin, Manet surrounded the buttery bread with things to stimulate the senses—a brilliant white napkin, soft peaches, glistening plums, a polished knife, a bright red box—and, in traditional fashion, topped the brioche with a fragrant flower.

Edouard Manet (1832–1883). Nature morte, brioche, fleurs, poires. 1876.

Manet’s brush is liberated from the constraints of the literal reproduction of reality.

Edouard Manet (1832–1883). Nature morte, huîtres, citron, brioche. 1876.

The brioche is on the right side of the picture. As in the previous picture, the artist is now depicting reality with a broader less precise brush.

Title: Still Life with Brioche (Nature morte à la brioche)

Artist: Edouard Manet, French, 1832–1883
Date: 1880
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: Work21 ¾ × 13 ⅞ in 55.24 × 35.24 cm
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Manet was keen on depicting brioches.

On 16 October, 1882, the aspiring young trainee painter Blanche was tasked with the “test ultime pour le peintre” while visiting Manet in his new studio at 77 rue d’Amsterdam, to paint an ordinary bun. “Bring me a brioche, I want to see you paint a brioche, if you can paint a brioche then you can call yourself a painter.”

Pablo Picasso, 1909, La Brioche (Nature morte à la brioche).

Painted in 1909

With Picasso there is not much to say, the world is turned upside down. But it is ok, as long as we can convince ourselves that what we see is a brioche.

Arthur Rimbaud – Αρθούρος Ρεμπώ

Ο ποιητής και στιχουργός Νίκος Γκάτσος έγραψε το 1976 τους στίχους ενός τραγουδιού με τίτλο «Μεθυσμένο Καράβι». Το μελοποίησε ο Μάνος Χατζηδάκις και το περιέλαβε στο άλμπουμ «Αθανασία».
Αρθούρε Ρεμπώ
απόψε θα μπω
στο μαύρο μεθυσμένο σου καράβι
μακριά ν’ ανοιχτώ
σε κύκλο φριχτό
που ο κόσμος δεν μπορεί να καταλάβει
Εκείνη την εποχή ψηλάφιζα την ποίηση, του τέλους του 19ου αιώνα, ο Ρεμπώ ήταν στο μυαλό μου ένας αντάρτης της ποίησης. Δεκαπέντε χρόνια αργότερα ζούσα και εργαζόμουν στην Αγγλία. Οι «Εκλάμψεις» ήταν στο κομοδίνο δίπλα στο κρεββάτι μου. Με βοηθούσαν να σβήσω τις παραστάσεις της εργάσιμης ημέρας και να ταξιδέψω σε έναν άλλο κόσμο.
Ο Βερλαίν έγραψε ότι η ποίηση του Ρεμπώ απελευθέρωσε την ποίηση από την γλώσσα της κοινής λογικής. Ο υπερρεαλιστής André Breton περιέγραψε τον Ρεμπώ σαν «ένα πραγματικό θεό της εφηβείας».
Ο Ρεμπώ γεννήθηκε το 1854. Ο πατέρας του Frédéric ήταν στρατιωτικός και η μητέρα του Vitalie Cuif μια καθώς πρέπει κόρη εύπορου αγρότη από την περιοχή της Σαρλβίλ, που όσοι την γνώρισαν δεν την είδαν ποτέ να χαμογελά. Απέκτησαν πέντε παιδιά. Όταν υπηρετούσε στη Βόρεια Αφρική, ο πατέρας είχε μεταφράσει το Κοράνι και δημοσιεύσει ένα βιβλίο με αστεία της Αραβίας. Από την άλλη μεριά, η μητέρα ήταν ένας πρακτικός άνθρωπος που έλεγε ότι το μόνο που μετράει στη ζωή είναι οι πράξεις. Ο πατέρας εγκατέλειψε την οικογένεια όταν ο Αρθούρος ήταν 5 ετών.

Rimbaud's tombe in Charleville
 Ο τάφος του Rimbaud’ στην γενέτειρα του Charleville

Σε επιστολή του τον Μάϊο 1871 στον δάσκαλο του Izambard, ο «προφήτης» ποιητής προαναγγέλλει την αποδόμηση του εαυτού:
“Je est un autre”
«Εγώ είναι κάποιος άλλος»
Τον Σεπτέμβριο του 1871 έγραψε στον ποιητή Paul Verlaine (Βερλαίν) και του στέλνει κάποια δείγματα της γραφής του. Ο Βερλαίν του απάντησε «Πρόσελθε αγαπητή μεγάλη ψυχή, σε περιμένουμε, σε ποθούμε.» Μέσα στον φάκελο ο Βερλαίν είχε εσωκλείσει το εισιτήριο τρένου για το ταξίδι του Ρεμπώ από την Σαρλβίλ στο Παρίσι.
Ο Βερλαίν ήτανε τότε 27 χρονών, «ερασιτεχνικά» ομοφυλόφιλος, αλκοολικός, και βίαιος. Συχνά βιαιοπραγούσε κατά της εγκύου συζύγου του Ματθίλδης. Η άφιξη του Ρεμπώ στο Παρίσι δυσκόλεψε ακόμη περισσότερο την οικογενειακή κατάσταση του Βερλαίν, που αναγκάστηκε να βρει κατάλυμα εκτός της οικογενειακής εστίας, σε κάποιους φίλους του.
Ο Ρεμπώ εντάχθηκε αμέσως στον κύκλο των λογοτεχνών και καλλιτεχνών του Παρισιού, και απεικονίσθηκε από τον Henri Fantin-Latour στο ομαδικό πορτραίτο “Γύρω από το τραπέζι” που φιλοτεχνήθηκε το 1872. Στο πορτραίτο δίπλα του κάθεται ο Βερλαίν.
Από το φθινόπωρο του 1871 μέχρι τον Ιούλιο του 1873, το ζευγάρι των ποιητών περιπλανήθηκε από το Παρίσι στο Βέλγιο στο Λονδίνο και, τελικά, πίσω στις Βρυξέλλες ξανά, πίνοντας αψέντι, καπνίζοντας χασίς, επιδεικνύοντας δημόσιο με ανάρμοστο τρόπο τα συναισθήματα τους, καυγαδίζοντας, και – όπως περηφανεύτηκε κάποτε ο Βερλαίν – κάνοντας έρωτα «σαν τίγρεις».
Η εκρηκτική σχέση του Ρεμπώ με τον Βερλαίν, που χαρακτηρίστηκε «τρελή αγάπη» (amour fou) κατέληξε τον Ιούλιο του 1873 με ένα επεισόδιο σε ένα ξενοδοχείο στις Βρυξέλλες, όπου ο Βερλαίν σε κατάσταση μέθης πυροβόλησε τον Ρεμπώ με περίστροφο. Η σφαίρα τον βρήκε λίγο πάνω από τον καρπό του χεριού του. Ο Γάλλος συγγραφέας Charles Dantzig σε ένα άρθρο του αναφέρει ότι ο Ρεμπώ κάλεσε την αστυνομία. Μετά από την ανάκριση που περιέλαβε μια εξευτελιστική ιατρική εξέταση, ο Βερλαίν καταδικάστηκε σε κάθειρξη δύο ετών, ενώ ο Ρεμπώ γύρισε στο αγρόκτημα της μητέρας του.
Πολλοί θεωρούν το ζευγάρι Ρεμπώ – Βερλαίν σαν τον Αδάμ και την Εύα της σύγχρονης ομοφυλοφιλίας. Υπάρχουν όμως ενδείξεις προς μια άλλη κατάσταση. Ο Ρεμπώ στον βαθμό που ενδιαφερόταν για κάποιον άλλο από τον εαυτό του, ενδιαφερόταν κυρίως για γυναίκες. Στην Αβησσυνία συζούσε με μια πανέμορφη γυναίκα που φορούσε ευρωπαϊκά ενδύματα και κάπνιζε τσιγάρα. Δεν αποκλείεται ο Βερλαίν, ένας πολύ άσχημος άνδρας, να ήταν ένα πείραμα του Ρεμπώ, μέρος ενός προγράμματος λελογισμένου εκτροχιασμού των αισθήσεων, στα πλαίσια του οποίου ο έφηβος φιλοδοξούσε να επανεφεύρει την αγάπη, την κοινωνία, και την ποίηση..

Henri Fantin Latour. Rimbaud is second from the left, Verlaine is first from the left.
Henri Fantin Latour

Ο Bod Dylan (Μπομπ Ντίλαν) διάβασε Ρεμπώ στις αρχές της δεκαετίας του 1960. Η ποίηση του Ρεμπώ γονιμοποίησε τη δημιουργικότητα του. Στο τραγούδι του «You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go» (άλμπουμ «Blood on the Tracks», 1975) ο Ντίλαν αναφέρεται στους δύο ποιητές. Η απόδοση στα ελληνικά είναι δική μου.
Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud’s
But there’s no way I can compare
All them scenes to this affair
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go
Καταστάσεις που κατέληξαν με λύπη
Σχέσεις που όλες υπήρξαν κακές
Οι δικές μου υπήρξαν σαν εκείνη του Βερλαίν και του Ρεμπώ
Αλλά δεν υπάρχει τρόπος να συγκρίνω
Οποιαδήποτε από αυτές με αυτήν την περίπτωση
Θα με κάνεις να αισθάνομαι μοναξιά όταν θα φύγεις

Bod Dylan, You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

Μετά την επιστροφή του στην φάρμα της μητέρας του, ο Ρεμπώ πέρας το καλοκαίρι του 1873 δουλεύοντας το κείμενο που είχε αρχίσει να γράφει νωρίτερα τον ίδιο χρόνο. Αυτό το κείμενο αποτέλεσε το έργο «Μια Εποχή στην Κόλαση», το πιο γνωστό του ποιητή, από τα κείμενα που θεμελίωσαν τον Ευρωπαϊκό μοντερνισμό.
Τον Οκτώβριο 1873 εκδόθηκε στις Βρυξέλλες το ποίημα «Μια Εποχή στην Κόλαση». Ο Ρεμπώ ήταν τότε μόλις 19 ετών. Είναι το μόνο βιβλίο με ποίηση του που εξέδωσε ο ίδιος ο ποιητής. Το ποίημα (εννέα χιλιάδες στίχοι) αρχικά δεν έκανε κάποια εντύπωση. Για μεγάλο διάστημα δε, επικρατούσε η φήμη ότι ο Ρεμπώ έκαψε όλα τα αντίτυπα που παρέμεναν απούλητα στο τυπογραφείο. Αργότερα όμως διαψεύσθηκε. Τα απούλητα αντίγραφα ήταν στιβαγμένα σε μια σοφίτα στο τυπογραφείο.
«Εγώ που αποκάλεσα τον εαυτό μου άγγελο ή προφήτη, εξαιρετέο από κάθε ηθική, προσγειώνομαι στο έδαφος με αποστολή να ψάξω και να αγκαλιάσω την ζοφερή!»
Μια Εποχή στην Κόλαση
Οι δύο πρώην φίλοι συναντήθηκαν ξανά μια τελευταία φορά το 1875 στη Γερμανία. Ο αποφυλακισμένος Βερλαίν είχε ασπασθεί στην φυλακή τον Καθολικισμό και κρατούσε στη διάρκεια της συνάντησης το κομποσκοίνι της προσευχής του. Εικάζεται ότι στο χρονικό διάστημα 1873 – 1875, ο Ρεμπώ έγραψε τα σαράντα ποιήματα που παρέδωσε στον πρώην εραστή του. Ο Βερλαίν έδωσε στην συλλογή που εκδόθηκε για πρώτη φορά τον Οκτώβριο 1886 τον τίτλο «Εκλάμψεις».
Στις σημειώσεις που επιμελήθηκε και προσέθεσε στο πρόγραμμα των συναυλιών της Ορχήστρας Δωματίου της Βοστώνης τον Μάϊο 2007 ο Jeremy Black, διαβάζω ότι ο Άγγλος μουσικοσυνθέτης Benjamin Britten (Μπέντζαμιν Μπρίττεν) αισθάνθηκε βαθιά μέσα του την συναισθηματική ένταση αυτών των ποιημάτων και αποφάσισε να τα μελοποιήσει αμέσως μετά. Η σοπράνο Sophie Wyss στην οποία ο συνθέτης αφιέρωσε τον κύκλο τραγουδιών που συνέθεσε αναφέρει:
«Ήταν τόσο πλημμυρισμένος από αυτή την ποίηση που δεν μπορούσε να σταματήσει να μιλάει γι’ αυτήν. Υποθέτω ότι βρήκε ένα βιβλίο με τα ποιήματα του Ρεμπώ στο σπίτι του [W.H.] Auden στο Birmingham, όπου είχε παραμείνει πρόσφατα.»
Η πρόταση που για τον Britten αποτελεί το κλειδί για την ποίηση του Ρεμπώ είναι η ακόλουθη:
“J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage”
«Μόνο εγώ κατέχω το κλειδί αυτής της άγριας παρέλασης»
Εκλάμψεις
Μόνο ο καλλιτέχνης, παρακολουθώντας τον κόσμο απέξω, μπορεί να κατανοήσει την «άγρια παρέλαση» της ζωής.
Κάποια στιγμή το 1875 ο Ρεμπώ αποκήρυξε την ποίηση και άρχισε να ταξιδεύει. Αν έγραψε ποιήματα μετά τα 21 χρόνια του, αυτά δεν έχουν διασωθεί. Διασώθηκαν όμως πολλά γράμματα που έγραψε στην μητέρα και την αδελφή του, αφηγούμενος ανάμεσα σε άλλα τη ζωή του στην Αβησσυνία.

“Η μέρα μου τελείωσε. Αφήνω την Ευρώπη. Ο θαλασσινός αέρας θα κάψει τα πνεμόνια μου, άγνωστα κλίματα θα μαυρίσουν το δέρμα μου.”
Μια Εποχή στην Κόλαση

Το 1878 ο Ρεμπώ βρήκε μια δουλειά σαν επόπτης λατομείου στην Κύπρο. Στο πρώτο του γράμμα από την Κύπρο, τον Φεβρουάριο 1878 εκφράζει την απομόνωση που θα χαρακτηρίσει το υπόλοιπο του βίου του.
“Το πλησιέστερο χωριό είναι μια ώρα δρόμος με τα πόδια. Εδώ δεν υπάρχει τίποτε, παρά μια συστάδα βράχων, ένας ποταμός και η θάλασσα. Δεν υπάρχουν σπίτια. Δεν υπάρχει χώμα, κήποι, δένδρα.”
Τον Μάϊο 1880 ο Ρεμπώ ανέλαβε επιστάτης στην κατασκευή του Κυβερνείου της Κύπρου, όμως λίγους μήνες αργότερα έγραψε στην οικογένεια του ότι έφυγε από την Κύπρο, μετά από διαφωνίες για τον μισθό του. Ένας γνωστός του στην Κύπρο ανέφερε ότι η αιτία της αναχώρησης από την Κύπρο ήταν ένα ατύχημα στο οποίο σκοτώθηκε ένας εργάτης. Τον είχε βρει μια πέτρα που πέταξε ο Ρεμπώ.
Μια χειμωνιάτικη μέρα το 1883, ο Γάλλος έμπορος καφέ Alfred Bardey επέστρεφε από τη Μασσαλία στο λιμάνι του Άντεν στην Αραβία. Στο πλοίο συνάντησε ένα νεαρό δημοσιογράφο, τον Paul Bourde και έπιασε την κουβέντα μαζί του. Καθώς ο Bardsey περιέγραφε την εμπορική του επιχείρηση, που είχε έδρα το Άντεν, έτυχε να αναφέρει το όνομα ενός από τους υπαλλήλους του – «ένα ψηλό, ευχάριστο και ολιγομίλητο άνδρα» – όπως το περιέγραψε. Προς έκπληξη του Bardey, ο Bourde δεν πίστευε το όνομα που άκουσε. Αυτό δεν οφειλόταν τόσο στο ότι ήταν συμμαθητής στο σχολείο με τον υπάλληλο που ανέφερε ο συνομιλητής του, όσο το ότι, όπως πολλοί Γάλλοι που ακολουθούσαν την σύγχρονη λογοτεχνική ζωή, νόμιζε ότι ο συμμαθητής του ήταν νεκρός.

The house where Rimbaud was born
Αναμνηστική πλάκα στο σπίτι που γεννήθηκε ο ποιητής 

Ο υπάλληλος του Bardey ήταν ο Ρεμπώ, που είχε αφιχθεί λιμάνι στο Άντεν τον Αύγουστο του 1880 και λίγο μετά προσελήφθη στην εμπορική εταιρεία του Bardey με αρμοδιότητα για την παραλαβή δεμάτων καφέ από τους παραγωγούς. Στην αρχή ο Ρεμπώ είχε βάση το λιμάνι του Άντεν. Αργότερα όμως, έμαθε για το Χαράρ, και ζήτησε να εγκατασταθεί εκεί. Το Χαράρ, μεγάλο κέντρο σπουδών των Σούφηδων, χτίστηκε τον 16ο αιώνα χωρίς η παλιά πόλη (που αποκαλείται ‘Jugol Harar ‘) να έχει αλλάξει από τότε. Μέχρι το 1855, όταν ο Sir Richard Burton έφθασε εκεί, ήταν απρόσιτο από τους ξένους. Σήμερα έχει χαρακτηρισθεί πόλη Παγκόσμιας Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς από την UNESCO.
Το 1880 ο Ρεμπώ διέρχεται για πρώτη φορά την πύλη της παλιάς πόλης στο Χαράρ. Έμεινε στην Αφρική μέχρι το 1891. Για να φτάσει εκεί είχε διασχίσει τον κόλπο του Άντεν με ένα ξύλινο πλοιάριο και επί 20 ημέρες επί αλόγου την έρημο της Σομαλίας. Ο Ρεμπώ διέμεινε στο Χαράρ για μια περίοδο πέντε ετών, σε τρία διαστήματα ανάμεσα στο 1880 και το 1891. Η διαμονή ήταν παραγωγική για τον Ρεμπώ, που στο τέλος της δεκαετίας του 1880 είχε καταφέρει να γίνει ένας από τους μεγαλέμπορους εξωτερικού εμπορίου στην περιοχή της νότιας Αβησσυνίας. Η δραστηριότητα αυτή είχε και τα απρόοπτα της.
Όταν προμήθευσε στον μελλοντικό Αιθίοπα Αυτοκράτορα Menelik II όπλα, αναγκάστηκε να υποκύψει σε εκβιασμό που οδήγησε σε δραστική μείωση της τιμής τους. Παρόλα αυτά, ίσως η προμήθεια αυτή επηρέασε σημαντικά την ιστορία της Αιθιοπίας. Όταν η Ιταλία εισέβαλε στην Αιθιοπία το 1896, προσπαθώντας να την καταλάβει, ο Menelik συνέτριψε τον εισβολέα στην Adwa, εν πολλοίς χάρη στα όπλα που του προμήθευσε ο Ρεμπώ. Η Ιταλία αναγκάστηκε κατόπιν τούτου να αναγνωρίσει την ανεξαρτησία της Αιθιοπίας.
Ο Ρεμπώ πέθανε το Νοέμβριο του 1891 από καρκίνο στη Μασσαλία, στο νοσοκομείο Hôpital de la Conception. Ήταν 37 ετών. Πριν πεθάνει, εξέφρασε την επιθυμία να ταφεί στην Αβησσυνία, την χώρα που τόσο πολύ αγάπησε. Το καλοκαίρι του 1891 έγραψε:
“Ελπίζω να επιστρέψω εκεί…. θα ζω για πάντα εκεί”
Όμως ο Ρεμπώ δεν επέστρεψε στο Χαράρ. Ήταν τόσο άρρωστος που το μεγάλο ταξίδι με το πλοίο του ήταν αδύνατο. Την ώρα του θανάτου του, έγραφε σε γράμμα του προς τον Διευθυντή των ναυτιλιακών γραμμών «Messageries Maritimes» τα ακόλουθα:
“Ενημερώστε με για την ώρα της επιβίβασης.”
Μέχρι την τελευταία του πνοή, ο ιδιοφυής αντάρτης της κοινωνίας και της ζωής είχε σκοπό να γυρίσει στο Χαράρ, την πόλη που μπόρεσε να βρει την γαλήνη. Ο Ρεμπώ ετάφη στον γενέθλιο τόπο του, την Charleville (Σαρλβίλ) των Αρδεννών στη βορειοανατολική Γαλλία, κοντά στα σύνορα με το Βέλγιο. Η επιτύμβιος στήλη στο μνήμα του γράφει «Προσευχήσου γι’ αυτόν».
Η Πάτι Σμιθ ανακάλυψε τον ποιητή σε ηλικία 16 ετών όταν έπεσε στα χέρια της ένα μεταχειρισμένο βιβλίο με ποιήματα του Ρεμπώ. Στην εισαγωγή της ανθολογίας “The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry,” έκδοση του 2000, η Σμιθ γράφει:
«Όταν ήμουν δεκαέξι χρονών, εργαζόμενη σε ένα εργοστάσιο σε μια μικρή πόλη στο νότο της πολιτείας Jersey, η σωτηρία και ανάπαυση μου από το ζοφερό (εργασιακό) περιβάλλον μου ήταν ένα ταλαιπωρημένο αντίγραφο των Εκλάμψεων του Αρθούρου Ρεμπώ, που το κουβαλούσα στην κωλότσεπη. Παρόλο ότι δεν καταλάβαινα όλα όσα διάβαζα, (το βιβλίο) με μετέφερε σε ένα κόσμο εξυψωμένης ποιητικής γλώσσας, και αυτή τη γλώσσα την αισθανόμουνα περισσότερο οικεία από την άξεστη και παραφθαρμένη γλώσσα του εργοστασίου.»
Η Σμιθ επισκέφθηκε τον τάφο του το 1973, όπως αναφέρει στο βιβλίο της «M Train» (Vintage Books, First Edition August 2016). Είχε μαζί της μπλέ χάντρες από το Χαράρ. Τις «φύτεψε» γύρω από τη βάση ενός αμφορέα που ήταν στο πλάι του τάφου, ελπίζοντας ότι έστω και εκ των υστέρων, ο ποιητής θα βρισκόταν κοντά σε κάτι από τον τόπο που τόσο αγάπησε.

Rimbaud in Aden (first man on the right)
Ο ποιητής στο Aden (πρώτος από δεξιά) 

Γιατί ο Ρεμπώ σταμάτησε να γράφει ποιήματα τόσο νωρίς; Η απάντηση μπορεί να είναι πολύ απλή. Ίσως δεν είχε να πει κάτι περισσότερο.
Πηγές
1. Where Rimbaud Found Peace in Ethiopia, By Rachel B. Doyle, The New York Times. Feb. 27, 2015
2. Arse Poetica: When Rimbaud was good, he was very, very good. By Ruth Franklin. The New Yorker. November 9, 2003
3. Rebel Rebel. Arthur Rimbaud’s brief career. By Daniel Mendelsohn. The New Yorker. August 22, 2011

Carmen Gaudin

Carmen Gaudin was the favourite model of the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901). Toulouse-Lautrec met red-haired Carmen Gaudin in the Montmartre district of Paris in 1884, and she soon became his favourite model.

He created fifteen paintings and drawings featuring her.

More than the characters she seems so apt to embody, her person and her wealth of humanity without artifice have obviously fascinated Lautrec for whom contact with life is essential. His painting confirmed this for five years: between 1884 and 1889, Carmen obsessed him, to the point that the artist’s eye enveloped him with a kind of photographic gyration that did not yet have an equivalent among experts in the medium.

Like a filmmaker turning around his character to multiply the angles of shooting, Lautrec represents Carmen from the front, from the back, from the profile, head down, capturing the stubborn and fierce expression of the young woman whose flamboyant and untamed hair seduced him. This repeated and insistent appropriation of the image of a model, in that it is systematic, reflects the concern to identify the figures to better assert their singularity and their aesthetic strength.

Carmen Gaudin

Carmen Gaudin (1884)
Oil on canvas, 53 x 41 cm
Williamstown, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

The more orthodox and darker oil-painting style, with smoother surface, which can be seen in the portrayal of Lautrec’s models at this time, can be attributed to the influence of Bonnat, Lautrec’s teacher.

Carmen Gaudin 1885

Carmen Gaudin, 1885
23.8 x 14.9 cm
Oil on wood
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

(Albi) Carmen la rousse 1885 Toulouse-Lautrec – MTL.112

Carmen la rousse 1885

Musee Toulouse Lautrec

The Laundress

La blanchisseuse

Stamped with artist’s monogram ‘TL’ (lower left)
oil on canvas
36½ x 29½ in. (93 x 75 cm.)
Painted in 1886-1887

Private Collection. In November 2005 the painting set the auction record for the painter’s work, selling to an anonymous buyer for $22.4m (£13m) at Christie’s in New York.

While Joyant ascribed the date of 1888 to La blanchisseuse, and Dortu placed it in the year after that, Charles F. Stuckey and Naomi E. Maurer have convincingly made the case that Lautrec painted this picture in 1886-1887 (in exh. cat., op. cit., Chicago, 1979, pp. 113-114). The artist was probably not yet 23 years of age when he completed La blanchisseuse. It was his finest painting to date, and indeed, it is arguably his first masterwork. There is no prior picture in his oeuvre in which the young painter had so powerfully and dramatically characterized his subject, or expressed his deepening insight into the world around him with such clarity and certainty in his technical means. Projecting himself into the very soul of this young woman, who may have been no older than himself, Lautrec demonstrated a degree of worldly understanding and compassion well beyond his years. Yet there is nothing sentimental or emotionally extraneous in his depiction of her. Here he made a significant statement of what it was like to live and work in the lowermost rungs of Parisian society at that time; he has utterly transformed the particulars of daily life into the universal image of art. For an adequate comparison, using a similar subject, one has to turn to the mature work of an artist no less in stature than Degas.

Lautrec painted La blanchisseuse during the final years of his enrollment in the atelier of Fernand Cormon, which he entered in 1882. Cormon specialized in an unusual genre, of no interest in itself to Lautrec, in which he painted scenes from prehistory and antiquity that he painstakingly researched using the latest archeological findings. Nonetheless, having chosen to locate his studio in the less academic and déclassé milieu of Montmartre, Cormon proved to be a progressive teacher in other respects. At the conclusion of his morning classes, he urged his pupils to take their sketchbooks out into the streets and draw the people of all stations whom they encountered there. Having led a relatively sheltered life on the provincial estate of an aristocratic family, Lautrec was fascinated by the bustle of the streets and the people who eked out marginal livings in lowly occupations. Older, more experienced friends and fellow students, such as Albert Grenier and Henri Rachou, introduced Lautrec to the seamy pleasures of the demi-monde. In 1886, not long before he painted La blanchisseuse, Lautrec signaled his commitment to a bohemian life-style by renting rooms with a studio at 27 (now 21), rue Caulaincourt in Montmartre, where he stayed until 1898.

The model for this painting was Carmen Gaudin, who in fact made her living as a laundress. François Gauzi, writing much later, related a story in which Lautrec and Rachou spotted Carmen as she was leaving a restaurant sometime in mid-1885. Lautrec was irresistibly attracted to red-headed women, and is supposed to have walked right up to her and examined her closely. He exclaimed to Rachou, “what an air of spoiled meat she has” (in F. Gauzi, Lautrec et son temps, Paris, 1954, p. 129), apparently referring to the fact that like many laundrymaids, she probably worked as a part-time prostitute. Lautrec is supposed to have sought to improve her position by making her his model, but it appears that she had already posed for the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, and later worked for Cormon as well. In autumn 1885 Lautrec wrote to his mother that he was “painting a woman whose hair is absolute gold,” a clear reference to Carmen. His model turned out to be not quite the wild creature that he first supposed her to be. David Sweetman has described Carmen as “polite, punctual, discreet and eager to please. In fact this passivity was one of her sadder traits–[Lautrec] eventually discovered that she had a lover, or more likely a pimp that beat her up, though she never deserted him.” (in Toulouse-Lautrec and the Fin-de-Siècle, London, 1999, p. 142).

Lautrec made numerous studies of Carmen in 1885 (Dortu, nos. P. 243-247). She is easily identifiable by her russet hair, with a fringe that extends outward like small curving wings from her forehead, a petite upturned nose, and a squarish face (fig. 1). By the titles of these studies we know her as Carmen, La Rousse (the redhead), and in Dortu, no. P. 247, her occupation was identified as that of a blanchisseuse. The first large painting in which Lautrec featured her initially caused some confusion about her identity; it is titled A Montrouge–Rosa la Rouge, which refers to a gritty street song by the cabaret singer Aristide Bruant, in which the hapless working heroine, like Carmen in real life, gets bloodied in the end:

It’s Rosa I don’t know she comes from
She has red hair, a dog’s head
When she passes they say, here comes ‘Red’
At Montrouge.

When she gets a ‘John’ in the corner
Me, I’m right there not far at all
And the next day the cop finds ‘red’ all right,
At Montrouge.
(quoted in ibid., p. 143)

It was through Carmen’s situation that Lautrec first experienced the hellish underside of lower class life in Montmartre. In her presence the characters of Emile Zola’s 1877 novel L’Assommoir seemed to suddenly spring to life; the very subjects and fictional plots of the Naturalist novels that Lautrec had been reading materialized in all their disturbing reality before his eyes. In 1880 Joris-Karl Husymans published his Croquis parisiennes, in which he described the plight of washerwomen:

Oh yes, they have a bad reputation. Oh yes, the old ones prowl around like bitches scoffing and drinking, raging with thirst from the heat of the stoves. Oh yes, the young ones flirt, mad for love, and have a right old time on leaving the washhouse! And what of it? Do you think their lives are easy and that they haven’t the right to bury the dreariness of a long day in the bottom of a wine bottle or a bed? Oh, how they love and how they drink! Because to work standing up, under a rain constantly falling from washing hanging on lines, to feel the water creep over the hairs of your neck and run slowly down the middle of your back, to breathe steam from the laundry in big gulps, to have your loins burnt by the fire of the furnace, to carry cartloads of sheets over your shoulder, to stagger under the weight of an enormous basket, to walk, to run, never to rest such is their terrible job, their terrible life! (trans. Brendan King, Parisian Sketches, London, 2004, pp. 77-78)

The sadness of this dreary life may be seen in Carmen’s downcast and resigned expression in the painting Tête de femme rousse en caraco blanc, which, like the present painting, was probably done in 1886-1887, although Dortu ascribed it to 1889. Maurer has noted that these later paintings of Carmen are “subdued in color yet more subtle and refined than the somewhat crude, raw pictures of 1885. When Lautrec made his initial foray into the seamy world of the Parisian lower classes, he wanted his subjects to embody all its coarseness and brutality. In the years that followed, however, as his sensibilities changed, he considerably modified the quality of the works he produced after his first contact with the Zolaesque demi-monde. His paintings became increasingly elegant and subtle in mood as he sought to endow even the tawdriest subjects with decorative qualities and make them expressive of his own developing psychological insight” (in op. cit., pp. 113-114).

Lautrec captured and crystallized the very essence of Carmen Gaudin in the present painting. This was the largest of his depictions of her to date, and the most penetrating and personal in its projection of her inner life. Lautrec, with his own diminutive stature, viewed her slightly from below, which emphasizes the bottom-heavy, pyramidal mass of her lower body, which is further anchored by her left hand propped firmly on the table. Her figure then rises within the triangular shape of her white blouse and peaks at her neck and head, giving her an imposing, almost towering presence. Wearily, hunched forward by the weight of her chores, she leans forward into the light, sharply observing someone in the room, or perhaps looking expectantly to a window that opens to the world outside. In that moment she suddenly assumes an almost saint-like aura, and appears unbowed and defiant. While her eyes are hidden from view, we sense her indomitable character from her posture, her powerful hand, rubbed raw from her work, and the firmness of her jaw. Maurer has written,

By the size of the figure and the extreme boldness and simplicity of the geometric composition with its powerful light-dark contrasts, Lautrec has endowed La blanchisseuse with a physical monumentality that intensifies her mood of somber reflection and recalls similar works by Vermeer. Body inclined toward the open window and face gently illuminated by its light, the figure of the laundress expresses a quiet sense of yearning. By abruptly cropping the window with its open view and by curtaining the model’s eyes with her hair, Lautrec implies that her vision is directed not outside but inward. The masked eyes protect her from the prying gaze of the spectator as well, isolating her in introspection and suggesting how mysterious and hidden our real selves are from one another. (ibid., p. 114)

Carmen’s left-leaning pose in La blanchisseuse recalls Degas’ painting Répasseuse à contre-jour, one of a series depicting laundresses ironing that he made in 1873, whose realistic, proletarian subject caused a stir when Degas showed them in the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Douglas W. Druick and Peter Zeghers have called this Degas Répasseuse “the most economical as well as the noblest of Degas’ early depictions of ironers, with a slightly tragic cast mitigated only by the wonderful effect of light” (in Degas, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988, pp. 223-224). Lautrec was probably aware of this picture, and indeed in his own Blanchisseuse he created a ‘converse’ image of it. The window, table and model are similarly positioned. However, instead of silhouetting his subject against the light, Lautrec spotlights her against the surrounding darkness of the room. While Degas’ model is little more than a dark and anonymous profile, with little detail visible in her figure, Lautrec’s laundress has a strongly individual character. Unlike Degas, who showed the women at work, Lautrec went so far as to dispense with all signs of activity pertinent to Carmen’s occupation, as well as the tools of her trade. He instead proceeded by inference, allowing the title and the dramatic depiction of his subject tell the story in his picture. The novelty of Degas’ subject is less striking now than it was in the late 19th century, and his painting engages us primarily through “its wonderful effects of light.” Lautrec, on the other hand, draws in his viewers, now as then, through the unflinching intensity of his psychological insight, which is far more personal and confrontational than the “slightly tragic cast” of Degas’s painting.

Picasso also featured a laundress ironing in his own Répasseuse, painted near the end of his Blue period in 1904. Picasso was clearly referring to Degas’s paintings on this subject, and while he was a great admirer of Lautrec during his early years in Montmartre, it is perhaps unlikely that he knew Lautrec’s La blanchisseuse. In any case, Picasso’s painting is all about the misery and poverty of living, which he has stylized to such a degree that genuine tragedy has become melodrama. In contrast to both Degas and Picasso, artists who placed other agendas ahead of their engagement with the personality and inner life of their laundress subjects, Lautrec alone directs our attention in his portrait to the fact that this is the story of a real woman, a living, flesh-and-blood person.

Lautrec employed Carmen Gaudin as one of his favorite models into 1889. In the last paintings he made of her he adopted an airier, lighter keyed Impressionist manner, such as in La Rousse au caraco blanc, 1888 (Dortu, no. P.317), Femme rousse en mauve, 1889 (Dortu, no. P. 342) and, finally, Femme rousse assise dans le jardin de M. Forest, 1889 (Dortu, no. P. 343; fig. 6). Lautrec thereafter lost interest in Carmen, partly because of his contacts with other women, but as Lautrec told it, mainly because she stopped dyeing her hair, so that it no longer possessed its magical reddish-gold tone. Now an ordinary, natural brunette, she had, as Lautrec told a friend, “lost her appeal.” But she had initiated Lautrec into a hidden reality that the young painter had known little about, in David Sweetman’s words, “the grey world that lay behind the facade of starched shirts and layered dresses, the world of bourgeois fashion and comfort, whose slaves were the available playthings of the same men who paid so little for their daily luxuries” (op. cit., p. 143). This is the Paris that Lautrec came to know and love best, the nether regions of mixed light and shade, glamour and tawdriness, which would remain his hunting-ground, as well as his playground, for the rest of his life.

A note in Christie’s

“A Montrouge”– Rosa La Rouge, 1886-87

Oil on canvas
Overall: 28 3/8 x 19 1/8 in. (72.1 x 48.6 cm)

Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania, USA

Toulouse-Lautrec sought to show the underbelly of glamorous Parisian society. Here the model Carmen Gaudin poses as the prostitute Rosa La Rouge, a seedy and murderous character popularized by the songs of the cabaret performer Aristide Bruant. This painting once hung in Bruant’s nightclub, Le Mirliton, in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec paints Carmen with flaming red hair covering her face. Her jaw, which juts out, conveys her surly nature.

Red-Headed Woman in the Garden of M. Foret (1887)

Oil on cardboard
28-1/8 x 22-7/8 in. (71.4 x 58.1 cm)
The Norton Simon Foundation

This picture belongs to a small group Toulouse-Lautrec painted outdoors in the garden of a friend during the summer of 1887. Writing to his mother that July, he complained, “The sky is unsettled and is sprinkling us with an unconcern that shows how little feeling the Eternal Father has with regard to outdoor painting.” An irreverent wit, Toulouse-Lautrec is best remembered for his lurid, acidic portrayals of the Parisian demimonde. Here we see a very different side of his production—tender and pensive—capturing the features of his favourite model, Carmen Gaudin. Her flaming hair and pale, sharp features appear again and again in his pictures from the late 1880s.

Carmen Gaudin in the Artist’s Studio 1888

Carmen Gaudin in the Artist’s Studio (1888)

Oil on canvas
55.9 x 46.7 cm (22 x 18 3/8 in.)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gaudin wears the white blouse of a laundress and sits before a studio wall covered with angular canvases. Work-roughened fingers laced in her lap, she stares out at the viewer with a withdrawn, even sullen, expression. The life of a professional model was difficult and fraught with social stigma, her employment dependent on whether her look fit an artist’s vision. When Gaudin changed her locks from red to brown, Toulouse-Lautrec no longer hired her.

La Blanchisseuse, 1888

The Laundress, 1888.

Black and gray wash with white paint, scratched away in places, on gray cardboard prepared with white ground; sheet:

75.9 x 63.1 cm (29 7/8 x 24 13/16 in.).

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1952.113

A prolific illustrator, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made this drawing as an illustration for an article about “Summer in Paris” published in Paris illustré, a magazine popular among the middle classes. Although the article singled out the laundress as a charming object of the male gaze on the city streets, the stooping posture and dark-circled eyes of the figure seen here give her a worn, tired appearance that invites comparison with the workhorse behind her. The drawing’s sharp receding perspective emphasizes the act of street-level spectatorship and a man’s top hat visible in the coach behind the woman alludes to her subservient social and sexual role.

Toulouse-Lautrec made this drawing as an illustration for an article on “Summer in Paris” published in Paris illustré, a magazine popular among the middle classes. Although the article singled out the laundress as a charming object of the male gaze on the streets of the city, the stooping posture and dark-circled eyes of this figure give her a haggard look that invites comparison with the workhorse behind her. The sharp receding perspective emphasizes the act of street-level spectatorship. A man’s top hat visible in the coach behind the woman alludes to her subservient social and sexual role.

La Rousse in a White Blouse
1889
Oil on canvas. 60.5 x 50.3 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

“His painting should not be viewed merely as a chronicle of the anecdotal but as a quest for timeless values, for as Baudelaire had written, the painter of modern life should capture “the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.”

In La Rousse in a White Blouse in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, Lautrec depicts Carmen Gaudin, a girl of working-class origin whom he had discovered in the avenue Clichy in 1884 and with whom he had felt immediately fascinated. With her red hair and white skin, which enhanced her helpless and melancholic appearance, she was exactly the type of young woman he was keen to portray, and she therefore became the subject of several painting executed during those years. These include Carmen Gaudin, Carmen the Redhead, Carmen the Redhead with Lowered Head, The Washerwoman, and Carmen, in which the painter immortalised her likeness in a host of poses and costumes in his characteristic repetitive and insistent manner.

Lautrec, who generally shunned the plein air painting of the Impressionists, executed these works in the studio he shared with Henri Rachou on the rue Ganneron. In the painting in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection the studio background is sketched in order to make it go unnoticed and focus all attention on the sitter. Despite the simple pose in which the sitter is rendered, the melancholic atmosphere conveyed by the composition makes it a masterpiece. The technique of slight touches and very spontaneous brushwork is inherited from Impressionism.With this intentionally crude and unfinished execution the artist succeeds in imbuing with poetry an image that is otherwise very real thanks to his acute powers of observation that are evidenced particularly by the hair, which he paints with extreme care — both the wisps of hair that tumble over the girl’s eyes and those that have fallen out of the untidy chignon gathered at the nape of her neck.

As in other paintings featuring the same sitter, Lautrec achieves a new, modern approach to the art of portraiture that goes beyond a mere naturalistic depiction of the subject. By showing her in half profile with her head tilted and her hair hanging over her forehead partially concealing her face, he omits any reference to her identity and makes her an eternal and imperishable embodiment of the human being.”

Paloma Alarcó – Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Boulevard extérieur (à Montrouge – Rosa La Rouge)

Boulevard extérieur (à Montrouge – Rosa La Rouge), 1889, Paris, private collection

The depiction of the desolation of the street line while waiting for suitors is “résolument modern/decidedly modern”. The model is Carmen Gaudin, who chooses Toulouse-Lautrec for many roles. She is also especially appreciated for her flaming red hair.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Rousse (La toilette)
En 1889
Huile sur carton
H. 67,0 ; L. 54,0 cm.
Legs de Pierre Goujon, 1914
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

Toulouse-Lautrec left countless images of women captured in their intimacy, including depicted in their toilet. Here, the female figure occupies the center of the composition and imposes itself in close-up, thus offering the representation of a sculptural back to the viewer. The rattan seats arranged around it suggest that the scene takes place in the painter’s studio, rue Caulaincourt.
If, at the time, the theme of the woman in her toilet was often treated in particular by Mary Cassatt or Bonnard, it is above all the naturalistic influence of Degas that is very present in Lautrec’s painting. Thus, the forgetfulness of the academic pose and the rather unusual accelerated perspective in Lautrec, are like an echo of the series of women at their toilet that Degas presented at the 8th and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886. The framing of the scene and the plunging point of view are indisputably reminiscent of the masterful pastels of Degas to which Lautrec devoted great admiration. In the same way as his elder, Lautrec shows women “without their coquetry” as seen “through the keyhole”. However, he differs from Degas by the humanity with which he looks at them and paints them. This
painting has been the subject of various misunderstandings. It has, in fact, since its origin known several titles and its dating has been modified. It is now established that it was made in 1889 and not in 1896, as it appears in the old catalogues. It is surely this work that Lautrec presented under the name of “Rousse” at the Exposition des XX in Brussels in 1890. This title, wanted by the artist, recalls his predilection for red models, which he represented all his life.

Rodin Sculptures in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

The National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington DC is one of the best art galleries in the world. When I visited it in November 2017, what impressed me most was its collection of Rodin sculptures.

Rodin is a giant and as such he cannot be easily approached. His work is multi-faceted and goes far beyond “The Kiss”. Viewing the Rodin sculptures in NGA I was not overwhelmed, but invited to look into each one of them and discover what it meant to me.

I invite the reader of this post to discover what these sculptures mean for themselves. Rationalization is not necessary. A warm but intense feeling that Beauty brings meaning to Life would be enough.

Auguste Rodin, Morning. 1906, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Morning. 1906, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Woman and Child. 1901, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Woman and Child. 1901, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Eve, 1891, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Eve, 1891, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Sphinx. 1909, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Sphinx, 1909, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze. 1898, Plaster, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze. 1898, Plaster, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Evil Spirits, 1899, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Evil Spirits, 1899, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Evil Spirits, 1899, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, Cast 1898-1902, Bronze, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Hand of God, 1903, Plaster, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Jean d’ Aire, , beginning of 20th c., Plaster, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Head of Balzac, 1896, Bronze, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Gustav Mahler, 1909, Bronze, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Katherine Simpson, 1903, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, Thomas Fortune Ryan, 1910, Bronze, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, J. B. van Beckelaer, 1875, Marble, NGA, Washington DC, USA
Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, Cast 1901, Bronze, NGA, Washington DC, USA

View of the Asylum and the Chapel at Saint Remy de Provence

At the end of the 19th century, the former Augustinian monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole, dating back to the 12th century, had been converted into an asylum for psychiatric patients.

Some eleven years ago, I wrote an article on van Gogh’s stay in the Asylum. Today I revisit the asylum to present the only painting that van Gogh painted from the outside, in plain air, an asylum attendant keeping watch on the artist while he worked [1].

Van Gogh’s statue at the entrance of the Monastery Complex. Photo Credit @ Nikos Moropoulos

The author and journalist Martin Bailey, an expert on Van Gogh’s life, has traced the admissions register and other records from Saint-Paul de Mausole, a small asylum on the outskirts of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, for the period when Van Gogh was admitted as a private patient, a stay paid for by his brother Theo. The register shows Vincent van Gogh, 36, from Arles but born in the Netherlands, was admitted on 8 May 1889. No one visited van Gogh during his stay. Although Arles is only 20 km away from the asylum, none of his friends there made the short journey. His brother Theo, on the other hand, claimed in his letters that his wife was expecting and therefore could not be away from Paris. [2]

Van Gogh was released on 16 May 1890, at his own request. The final medical note described Van Gogh as “cured”. He travelled to northern France to begin again, but after a final burst of creativity, he died within two months – 36 hours after shooting himself in the stomach while out painting in the midsummer fields.[2]

Van Gogh, Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy. View of the Asylum and the Chapel at Saint Remy. 45.1 x 60.4 cm, 1889. Private Collection.

The painting was the centerpiece of Elizabeth Taylor’s collection. It was sold to a collector at a Christie’s auction in 2012. [1]

The painting’s provenance

December 1889: Vincent dispatches the painting to his brother Theo.

1907: Paul Cassirer, a leading German gallerist, acquires the painting form Theo’s widow.

1963:  The art dealer Francis Taylor purchased the painting at auction in London on behalf of his daughter Elizabeth.

2012: The painting is sold at auction by Christie’s.

Sources

[1] From the outside in: Van Gogh’s Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy, Christie’s

[2] Van Gogh’s ‘terrifying environment’ of French asylum revealed, The Guardian

Baux de Provence, France

Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos

Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos

Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos
Baux de Provence, Photo Nikos Moropoulos

A journey in Romanesque and Gothic Art

I have started reading the “History of European Culture”, by Panayiotis Kanellopoulos (1902 – 1986), a Greek author and politician. In the first volume of the treatise he explores Romanesque, and Gothic Art and this led me to depict part of his journey pictorially.

The term Romanesque Art refers to a period from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 12th century, or later, depending on region.. The term appeared first in France and England in 1818 and 1819 respectively, and then in the German territories in the 1830s.

Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Southern and Central Europe, never quite effacing more classical styles in Italy. In the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, before being subsumed into Renaissance art.

Gothic Art has a child movement, Expressionism, which also transcends Gothic to the Renaissance. Expressionism is linked to romanticism, the bedrock of German culture of the age. As such, some of the works visited here are expressionistic. It resurfaced as a major movement in Germany in the late 19th , early 20th century.

A journey of such scope will never end unless it is cut short. This is the predicament of every effort that attempts to capture what is almost infinite.

The stained glass windows in the Cathedral of Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany c. 1065

Germany has the distinction of having preserved the oldest complete windows in the world – in the cathedral in the ancient town of Augsburg, which was founded by the Romans in the first century AD.

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Prophet Windows, Augsburg Cathedral, Bavaria, Germany. The oldest surviving stained glass windows in the world. (Installed 1065 AD)

 

The southern clerestory of the Cathedral of Augsburg (German: Dom Mariä Heimsuchung) has five stained glass windows dated to the late 11th-early 12th centuries, the oldest in Germany: they feature the prophets David, Jonah, Daniel, Moses, Hosea, and were perhaps part of a larger series, the others now being missing.

330px-Clerestory_diagram
Clerestory Diagram

The colours in these windows are very different from the colours of twelfth‑century stained glass in England and France. Instead of luminous blues and rubies, the Augsburg figures are predominantly brown, gold, yellow, green and wine, and what little blue is used is a murky grey. These were the colours that predominated in many German churches, both in the Romanesque period and beyond.

The tympanum of the central portal of Abbaye Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay, Burgundy, France, c. 1130  

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In a 1944 article, Adolf Katzenellenbogen interpreted Vézelay’s tympanum as referring to the First Crusade and depicting the Pentecostal mission of the Apostles.

Vézelay_Narthex_Tympan_central_220608_02

The central tympanum shows a benevolent Christ conveying his message to the Apostles, who flank him on either side.

Braunschweig Collegiate Church, Germany, second half of the 12th century 

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Wooden Crucifix crafted by Master Imervard dating from the second half of the 12th century

Kanellopoulos considers this wooden sculpture to be the first work of art of German expressionism. This is where the path to the inconceivable and the infinite has started.

Chartres Cathedral, France, early 13th century

Chartres_-_south_portal_-_central_bay_-_Christ

The transition from Romanesque to Gothic Art combines classical aesthetic values with the the gothic turn to man’s internal world. Comparing the Christ of Vezelay, to the Christ of Chartres, it is clear that one is God, the other is almost human.

chartres_st_modeste

Gone are the sad, serious, frightened faces of Romanesque Saints.

St. Modeste of Chartres is happy, smiling, calm.

Naumburg Cathedral, Saxony, Germany, 13th century

800px-Uta_from_Naumburg

Uta von Ballenstedt (c. 1000 — 23 October before 1046), a member of the House of Ascania, was Margravine of Meissen from 1038 until 1046, the wife of Margrave Ekkehard II. Umberto Eco wrote in his ″History of Beauty″ that from all women of art history, the one he would like most have dinner with was in first place, ahead of all others, Uta von Naumburg.

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Founder figures Ekkehard II and Uta, c. 1260

 

Art Critic Ernst Gombrich’s first research project after leaving university was on the expressive features of the statues of the founders in the Cathedral of Naumburg:
‘These lifelike but imaginary portraits appeared to be so full of expression
that a whole drama had been woven around them. Ciceroni had developed
the legend that all these figures were participants in a story of conflict and
murder.’ (‘The Study of Art and the Study of Man’ in Tributes, Oxford 1984)

A lover handing his heart to his mistress, Roman de la Poire, c.1275

Roman_de_la_poire_heart_metaphor
Atelier du Maître de Bari. La dame de Thibaud et Doux Regard, Biblioteque National de France, Paris, c.1275

“Miniature (capital S) from a manuscript of the Roman de la poire. This is the earliest known visual depiction of a lover handing his heart to his mistress. The heart is in the shape of a pine-cone (point upward), in accord with anatomical descriptions of the human heart at the time.” (Wikipedia)

Notre-Dame de Reims, France, 13th century

The cathedral of Notre-Dame in Reims is a masterpiece of 13th-century Gothic architecture, where the kings of France were once crowned. It was begun in 1211 and completed at the end of the 13th century, with the exception of the upper parts of the western towers.

Reims-Cathedral-France

The Bamberg Cathedral, Bavaria, Germany

On May 6, 1237, the city of Bamberg celebrated the consecration of its newly rebuilt cathedral. Perched high on a hill at the center of town and accented by four imposing towers, the new structure loomed over the civic space in the valley below. Now known as the Fürstenportal, the chief ceremonial entryway at the building’s north side was lavishly adorned with sculptures.

Verdammte_Fuerstenportal_Fuerstenportal_am_Bamberger_Dom
Bamberg Cathedral Fürstenportal,  The Damned

Deeply carved figures in dramatic poses inhabit its tympanum, offering a pantomime performance of the separation of the saved and the damned at the Last Judgment. Wedged into the door jambs below, apostles stand on the shoulders of prophets; both strain to look up and catch a glimpse of the sacred drama being enacted in the tympanum.

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Bamberg Cathedral Fürstenportal

Hovering at the base of the portal’s left archivolts, a trumpeting angel announces Christ’s Second Coming and a figure of Abraham sits enthroned, cradling the souls of the saved.

The Bamberg Horseman (Der Bamberger Reiter), c. 13th century

The trigger for me to include the Bamberg Cathedral in this journey was the Horseman.

Bamberger_Reiter_Dom_Bamberg_P1330479_medium

The Synagoga Sculpture

But in the process I discovered the Synagoga sculpture and I was stunned.

Bamberg_Dom_Fürstenportal_Synagoge

Flanking the portal’s ensemble are monumental sculpted female personifications of Church and Synagogue, each installed atop a column and beneath a baldachin. The column under Ecclesia is adorned with a seated figure and symbols of the evangelists; that beneath Synagoga features the Devil blinding a Jew.

Synagoga represents Judaism and the Old Testament defeated by Christianity.  She’s blindfolded and dropping  Moses’ tablets of law.  Troubling anti-Semitism aside, Synagoga is the most beautiful sculpture in the church.  Actually, with her sheer dress and dignified  stance, she’s quite sexy.

Professor Achim Hubel, considers this as one of the finest 13th century female figures. There is sensuality in the bodily posture that has never before been accomplished in medieval sculpture.

Marienaltar, Herrgottskirche, Creglingen, Germany, early 16th century

I conclude this journey with the transition to the Renaissance.

The small Gothic Herrgottskirche in Creglingen near Würzburg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber has four altars including the Altar of the Virgin Mary (Marienaltar) — a masterpiece by the Late Gothic sculptor and woodcarver Tilman Riemenschneider. It is one of the most important medieval wood-carved artworks in Germany and as much worth seeing for its exquisitely carved details as for the religious messages in the work.

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Marienaltar, Herrgottskirche, Creglingen

The faces of Christ’s disciples are considered splendid works of Expressionism, the child of Gothic Art that was handed over to the Renaissance.

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Marienaltar, Herrgottskirche, Creglingen, The left side

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Marienaltar, Herrgottskirche, Creglingen, The right side

On “Absolute” and “Total” War

Introduction

In the context of an online course I am taking, I recently read von Clausewitz’s “On War” and from the discussion that followed, realized that there was significant confusion on the meaning of the term “absolute” war, and its relation to “total” war. So I wrote an answer to a question in the discussion forum of the course and here I present an enhanced version.

The question of war is pertinent more than ever today, with the Western World facing its biggest challenge since World War II. In parallel to the activities in the theater of war in Syria, we now see terrorist activities developing at a massive scale in the heart of Europe.

Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz

Absolute War

If we agree that “absolute” war is a concept coined by Clausewitz, then we should try to understand what Clausewitz meant by “absolute” war. I will quote some passages from Book I, and then comment. All references are from von Clausewitz’s “On War”.

“We see, therefore, how, from the commencement, the absolute, the mathematical as it is called, nowhere finds any sure basis in the calculations in the Art of War; and that from the outset there is a play of possibilities, probabilities, good and bad luck, which spreads about with all the coarse and fine threads of its web, and makes War of all branches of human activity the most like a gambling game.”(Book I, 21)

It is interesting to note that in the above passage of Clausewitz the absolute is equated with the mathematical. The lack of it leads to lack of a sure basis. He seems to be saying that War is not a deterministic phenomenon, and that there are many factors that mat make it like a gambling game.

“Theory must also take into account the human element; it must accord a place to courage, to boldness, even to rashness. The Art of War has to deal with living and with moral forces, the consequence of which is that it can never attain the absolute and positive.”(Book I, 22)

“The War of a community—of whole Nations, and particularly of civilised Nations—always starts from a political condition, and is called forth by a political motive. It is, therefore, a political act. Now if it was a perfect, unrestrained, and absolute expression of force, as we had to deduct it from its mere conception, then the moment it is called forth by policy it would step into the place of policy, and as something quite independent of it would set it aside, and only follow its own laws, just as a mine at the moment of explosion cannot be guided into any other direction than that which has been given to it by preparatory arrangements….But it is not so, and the idea is radically false.” (Book I, 23)

I believe that the highlighted passage (in bold) gives the answer to the question. “Absolute” war is a theoretical construct that never materializes, simply because the human and social actors engaged in war are far too complex. Absolute war is like the explosion of a mine, subject ONLY to the laws of physics. But even at the height of military operations, there are so many other factors partaking in the process, that the last thing one can speak of is “absolute”.

So, to wrap up, Clausewitz used the term “absolute” to denote a notion of war that can never materialize in human communities and with human actors.

Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff

Total War

“Total war” is a term that was comprehensively used in a series of articles published by Leon Daudet in 1918 (Daniel Marc Segesser, Controversy: Total War). Leon Daudet was a French journalist and writer.

[Total war] is the extension of the struggle in its pronounced as well as its chronic phases to the fields of politics, economics, trade, industry, intellectual abilities, jurisprudence and the financial world. Not only armies fight in battle, but also traditions, institutions, customs, codes, minds and most of all banks.[17]

Segesser concludes that

“The concept of “total war” was thus born out of the conviction that a radicalization of warfare as well as a comprehensive mobilization of human and material resources was necessary at a time when France was on the defensive in Verdun in 1916 and after the unsuccessful Nivelle offensive in 1917 when it tried to hold its ground.[19]

After Daudet, the term was used by the German General Erich Ludendorff in his book Der Totale Krieg (The Total War) published in 1935. In it he promotes the idea that war should mobilize all the resources of the Nation, and thus be a Total War.

“Total war requires enormous things from the commander. Effort and labour will be expected from him that have never been asked for from commanders in the past, not even from Frederic the Great.[27]

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Building on the work of Ludendorff, Joseph Goebels delivered his 1943 speech a storming call to engage in “Total War”. Here are some excerpts.

“Total war is the demand of the hour… We can no longer make only partial and careless use of the war potential at home and in the significant parts of Europe that we control. We must use our full resources, as quickly and thoroughly as it is organizationally and practically possible. …The total war effort has become a matter of the entire German people. No one has any excuse for ignoring its demands. A storm of applause greeted my call on 30 January for total war. I can therefore assure you that the leadership’s measures are in full agreement with the desires of the German people at home and at the front. The people are willing to bear any burden, even the heaviest, to make any sacrifice, if it leads to the great goal of victory.” (Nation, Rise Up, and Let the Storm Break Loose, by Joseph Goebbels).

Goebels continues to describe the total war measures taken, like the drafting of all capable men (factory workers were exempt), the mobilization of women in civic duties, and so on.

volksentscheid-fuer-den-totalen-krieg

When Goebels made his speech, the situation in Hitler’s Germany was critical. The battle of Stalingrad was lost and Germany was for the first time facing defeat. No wonder that Goebels calls all Germans to full mobilization.

From the brief references above, one can conclude that “total” war as defined by Daudet, Ludendorff and Goebels was the last resort to a war machine that had run into trouble and needed (or so some people had thought) to command all the resources, material and human, of society at large.

The term “total” war has also been used loosely by journalists and historians to characterize World War I, due to the technological advances in the means of warfare. However, this use is rather informal and lacks any real significance.

Conclusion

“Absolute” war is the functioning of the military machine as if it were lacking all human elements. It is therefore an abstraction that never materializes.

“Total” war is one where the military machine mobilizes all human and material resources of society.

Festive Lunch – 1st January 2015 – Marathon, Attica, Greece

Today I rejoice the passage of time, culminating in the coming of the new year.

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It was a chilly day with wet snow, but it felt nice

 

There is no better way to do that but a festive lunch, where food and drinks will have almost equal weight and pleasure potential.

menu 1 January 2015

Festive Lunch Table
Festive Lunch Table

The menu draws from Germany, Georgia, Italy and France. Greece adds the traditional cake to finish the meal, and the salad.

Bruns Raucheraal - Smoked Eel
Bruns Raucheraal – Smoked Eel

Smoked eel is one of the delicacies I will never stop craving for.

My best man, Manolis, brought me a sealed package of two smoked eels produced by Aal-Bruns, a German specialist producer.

As if I knew, I cut the eel in small pieces.

Pairing the smoked eel with a wine was a challenge.

But not for very long.

Smoked Eel
Smoked Eel

The gentle knight from Alsace came through the door and brought the solution with him. Two bottles of wine I had purchased in the Metzger winery at the beginning of the 21st century.

Metzger, Gewurztraminer Pflinz 1997
Metzger, Gewurztraminer Pflinz 1997

A late vintage of Gewurztraminer Pflinz from Alsace, produced in 1997!

I opened the first bottle, full of curiosity: Could a white wine have lasted for almost 18 years?

As you can see in the photo, the golden color of the wine gave the first answer. But this is nothing compared to the taste. Heaven on Earth!

The almost oily wine with its sublime sweetness coats the mouth and prepares it for the infusion with the smoky taste of the eel that literally melts in it. A marriage made in heaven.

Smoked Eel
Smoked Eel

I offered to my guests two options for tasting the eel. Both had as support a rectangle of whole grain bread, the first with a touch of butter on it, and the second with a spoonful of mashed pickled cabbage, beetroot, chilli pepper, celery and garlic. I personally enjoyed both, starting with the butter and then going to the pickled mix.

Needless to say, some pieces were enjoyed on their own. In the absolute magnificence of their existence. The taste is so powerful that only a small piece can be truly appreciated and enjoyed without the human being overwhelmed.

Georgian piroshki with minced beef
Georgian piroshki with minced beef

The second appetizer was a small piroshki with minced beef, a variation of a Georgian recipe.

It is smooth and spicy and tasty, while the wrapping is an ultra light and thin crepe.

The piroshki were prepared by a good friend.

Osso Bucco
Osso Bucco

The terrain is now open for the arrival of the main course, which is veal osso bucco with risotto.

I cooked the veal in a mix of carrots, celery, onions, garlic and tomatoes.

Risotto di Ossi
Risotto di Ossi

The abundant liquid of the mix I used in the risotto, which I prepared with Arborio rice from Ca Rossa.

The wine to accompany the main dish came from Toscana.

Ciacci Piccolomini di Aragona, Brunello di Montalcino, 1998
Ciacci Piccolomini di Aragona, Brunello di Montalcino, 1998

Brunello di Montalcino, 1998, produced by Ciacci Piccolomini d’ Aragona.

I had purchased both bottles in the winery’s shop near Montalcino, in Tuscany back in 2003.

The first bottle of the 16 year old wine was moderately ok, most likely due to cork problems. Drinkable, but not as rich and full as the second bottle, which gave to all great pleasure.

The risotto was the king of the main dish. It had rich flavor with considerable depth, without any of the elements overpowering the others.

The veal was tender, tasty and the rich sauce accompanied it in the best possible way.

At the end of the meal we shared the traditional “Vassilopitta”, a light cake made with mahlepi (mahlab) spice. Absolutely divine in its simplicity.

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Happy New Year!