Mes amis, Degas et DaVinci

The DaVinci exhibit was so amazing, I have to write a bit about it. Lasting about 2 and a half hours, it recounted the story leading up to DaVinci's chef d'oeuvre, La Sainte Anne. The painting, never completed, was apparantly the culmination of many of his studies: of human anatamony, of landscapes, mountains, water and nature. It depicts St Anne, the mother of Mary, holding her daughter back who is reaching out to an infant Jesus who is embracing a lamb, symbolic of his fate.

It took almost 20 years to paint (1500-1519). It was disctinct from his contemporaries theological depictions because DaVinci used realism to ilustrate a nonreal scene, as these 3 characters would never have been these ages at the same time. DaVinci often depicted theological scenes in a natural way giving credibility to the scene.

In his research DaVinci dissected human corpses on many occasions to uinderstand the body, intently studied water, and conducted his own experiments with science and nature. As he was an illegitimate son and therefore wasn't educated and didn't speak Latin his access to exisiting information was very limited.

The exhibit showed DaVinci's progression from preliminary sketches to "preparatory cartoons," large drawings made from several pieces of paper pasted together and mounted on wood.

Although hisprincipal draft, done in this style, exhibited in Florence in 1501 is lost, the Louvre had dozens of copies done by his contemporaries following DaVinci's exhibition, thought to be almost exact copies, like this one by Bernardino Luini.

The St. Anne ushered in a new age of art and was an immediate success. In Florence at the same time were also Michaelangelo, and Raphael.

The whole exhibit led up to the actual restored work that is truly mesmerising. The details of the sediment and rock bed that the three characters are standing on is incredible, the smile of St. Anne is unmistakably reticent of the Mona Lisa's.

The painting underwent massive restoration, although they were never able to bring back the vibrant green of the tree in the foreground as it had been paited with copper that tarnishes irreversibly. On the back of the giant frame DaVinci also sketched a skull and a horse head on the back that infrared lighting revealed.

Francois the First bought all of DaVinci's paintings he brought with him to France towards the end of his life which he lived out in Amboise, a chateau I visited a few years ago, and where DaVinci is buried. The painting was brought to the Louvre post-Revolution in 1797, and this is the first time it has been truly exhibitied. The exhibit at the Louvre now, going on until June 25th, is the culmination of curators research on this paitining.

The St. Anne has been widely replicated, from artists ranging from Degas to Delacroix to Ernst.

Probably the most impressive exhibit I've ever seen, I highly recomment it.

After this I was quite spoiled, and didn't appreciate the Degas exhibit as much as I thought I would. The exhibit at the Orsay was entitled Degas and the Nude, and after a while was quite repetitive.

The first third of the exhibit showed his sketches that he had made imrints of on metal plaques then stamped onto paper. Then the exhibit progressed to his charcoal and pastel works.

The first part focused on his works that depicted women during times of war and torture, and although I didn't find the subjects or the works very pleasant, his study of the female body and anatomy is undeniably stunning. Some of the content of the metal imprints reminded me of Lautrec's fixation with prostitutes and brothels at a time when female prostitutes were thought to be otherworldly beings having unsatiable desires and prone to female homosexuality. Pretty racy stuff. The dark and blurry element to these imprints added to the feeling of looking into some forbidden scene, captured hurriedly and still rough around the edges.

After the exhibit moved on to show his (maybe more well known) study of women doing everyday activities, usualy centering around grooming: bathing, dessing, brushing their hair. Degas apparantly wanted to portray women without vanity, in their natural beauty in everyday positions. He often called them "creatures" and in the paintings you can see can see the allusion to animals, grooming and preening themselves.

As I said, the exhibit got very repetitive, especially since Degas, like many other artists often created numerous sketches of the same work in order to get it right. By the end, instead of being wowed by the delicateness of his bowed heads, cascading hair, and sloping backs, I was kind of fed up with the voyeuristic side that never showed the women's faces, ever. As much as he showed the natural, unguarded beauty of his subjects he also showed many unflattering positions of everyday working women's bodies.

I don't know, I mean, who are you Degas to be showing the world all of our nooks and crannies? Artist or not, some things are meant to stay between women. And the fact that the images were decapitated images too. I felt like the women had no entities in his scenes and were just objects of the (male) spectators regard. Personally. However, the Orsay since they've redone it this year is most definitely still worth a visit.

Anyway, voilà and à bientôt!

Linz

Paris, Je t'aime.

Last Friday I went up to Paris for the ninth time in my life. I fall more and more in love with that place everytime I go.

OK, so any restaurant, no matter how high or low you look will cost you an arm and a leg, the people can be snooty, at best, and a coffee costs double what it would in any other city in France,

But, but...it's Paris. And the museums are free, and there are La Duree macaroons, and you're sure to pass at least a dozen fabulous buildings and bridges lit up strolling anyrwhere night, and you can't shake the feeling like you're walking around in a film.

I saw Davinci at the Louvre (so good I went back a second time), Degas at the Musée d'Orsay, Matisse at the Centre Pompidou and Rodin at the Musée Rodin.

I discovered a new neigborhood, the quartier St. Martin by the canal it's named after. I found designer outlets and the city's best bakery.

Le Canal St Martin

I saw an increidbly cool animation inside the courtyard of Les Invalides, reminiscent of the Fête des Lumières earlier this winter in Lyon that retold the story of the building throughout the revolutions.

Jardin Luxembourg

The Jardin de Luxembourg was in it's full spring splendor.

I ate veal and duck and drank wine.

I stayed one night with Marissa, then Helen and her cousin Nick, I saw Gaby my roommate from last year, Nes the girl I stayed with before flying out of Paris last June, and even my cousins Jake and Charlie who were there on a school trip.

Bref: 'twas fabulous.

l'Hotel de Ville at sunset

La Place des Vosges

Canal St Martin

Lock of the Canal St Martin

Best bakery in Paris (!!)

Temptation

Camille Claudel's l'Implorante

Musée Rodin

One of Paris's bridges by night

One of the many libraries

Paris at sunset

Quelle Honte

The "rentrée" of the April vacation, meaning the complaining about starting work up again, whining about students, the weather we had or didn't have over the holiday, agonizing over exactly how many days remain until the next holiday, was eclipsed by something that warrants, believe it or not, an even higher place on the rating totem pole: politics.

Sunday night was the first round of the two-part presidential elections in France that come around every five years, and the frogs came out in force: 80 percent voted. If, like most people, you don't follow French politics, because you don't live here, and so why would you, here's what happened: Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate came out ahead with 28 percent of the votes. The incumbent President, fondly known as Sarko, from the party took 27 percent of the votes, the first time an sitting president has not come in first during the first round since 1958. Marine Le Pen from the extreme right took 18 percent of the votes, the highest share of the vote the Front National has ever won. The other parties:  Jean-Luc Melenchon for The Communist Party won about 11 percent, Francois Bayrou for the centrist Modem Party took 9, all the other parties (yes there are still more) took minor percentages.

In 2002, a year that I swear to you will live in the French's collective consciousness for all time for this reason, after the first round of elections the citizens were left with a choice between 2 right-ist candidates: Jaques Chirac, a member of the now UMP party (same as Sarkozy), and for the extreme right, Marine's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Normally after the first round of voting the choice is narrowed down to 2 final candidates, almost always one from the right and one from the left (starting to look more familiar now, right?), except this year. And the French are still traumatized.

The fact that the extreme right with Marine Le Pen came this close to winning one of the 2 spots in the second round really got my colleagues riled up as they told me "quelle honte," "how embarassing," that so many French voted for her, nearly one in five, and they all relived their "horreur" of 2002.

Right now polls are projecting that Socialist Hollande will win second round which happens in 2 weeks, on May 6th, but what Marine will do with her voters is still up in the air. Some think she will call for them to abstain, as she cannot endorse Sarkozy after a whole campaign agaist him, nor endore Hollande who she has called one in the same as Sarko.  Last night Melenchon in no certain terms called for his constituents to take down Sarko, without explicitly  endorsing Mr. Hollande by name.  Bayrou, as he did back in 2007 after losing in the first round, will write letters to both Hollande and Sarko and await their answers on the economy and future of the country before endorsing one or the other.

Among many promises, Hollande has declared he will lower not only his salary but all those of his cabinet members upon election, bring the retirement age back down to 60 from 62 - an incredibly unpopular augmentation Sarkozy officialized last fall, raise the minimum wage, hire more teachers, oh and tax those earning above 1 million euros a year 75 percent on what they make above that margin.

Vive la France.

Carnaval

Isma and I, moderately disguised

The procession coming down rue de Metz
 towards the Pont Neuf bridge

Friday night was "Carnaval", or Mardi Gras in Toulouse. It's been 20 years since they've celebrated it here since apparently festivities got a little too out of hand back in the day. It was supposed to be two weeks ago with a parade on Wednesday, celebrations Thursday and a ball on Friday, however and given the events of the past few weeks it was pushed back again to this Friday.

There was a parade that started in the city center around 7:30pm with floats and all the Toulousains dressed up kids and adults. They walked and danced all around the city throwing paper confetti everywhere, and finished by crossing over the Pont Neuf around 10pm.

The hideous head up close

The whole point of the procession is to bring the "Monsieur Carnaval" to a place where the city then burns him. Kind of violent, no? The Monsieur can take many forms, like a scarecrow type body to a paper maché statue. This year the Monsieur Carnaval was a huge crowned head with a gaping mouth and fangs made entirely out of woven balsa wood. The idea is that you blame all the misfortunes, hardships, heartaches, etc of the year on the Monsieur in question, and then burn him. Kind of cathartic right?

The bonfire took place in the Prairie de Filtres next to the Garonne river, with hundreds of people lining both sides of the river and hanging over the bridge.

People gathered at the Prairie des Filtres for the bonfire

Take that Monsieur Carnaval

It was neat to be a part of, and nice to see the city back out on the streets celebrating something.

A bientôt.

Linz

Only in America

So I just had my last class with one of my favorite classes. My CPGE students – they have already graduated High School and are taking intensive preparatory classes over 2 years to prepare them to enter the most competitive engineering schools in France – have been the best all year. They’re almost fluent and we’ve had really interesting debates and discussions on everything ranging from the separation of church and state, to fraternities and sororities. However, we often focused on some of the more, shall we say, controversial subjects: the right to bear arms, abortion, the expensive higher education system of the US, privatization, etc, etc. Because, come on, aren’t those the subjects that always get people talking?

So, for our last class I told them that before I left France, I would show them that there were in fact some redeemable qualities about the US of A and I promised to show them if they gave me carte blanche to shamelessly promote my home country. They agreed.

So for the past 2 weeks I went to work on a powerpoint, half in jest but based in pure truth, that showed off the land of the free. It’s hard to transmit through a powerpoint what’s so great about a barbeque, or a baseball game, and I couldn’t go too pro-capitalist, flag waving, democracy spreading, on them for fear of losing my audience (remember who I’m talking to here.) I even baked them chocolate chip cookies to soften them up. We had a blast. 

Among other surprising discoveries in my research, I discovered that the US has invented practical things we use everyday, like paperclips, the escalator, email, the telephone and zippers. 


We’ve also invented a few not so practical things like the Segway. 


In terms of sports we are pretty unique in the valued position they hold in our public education system. We’ve invented baseball, football, volleyball, basketball, snowboarding skateboarding, and despite it’s French-sounding name, lacrosse.

We invented Superheroes, born out of the Great Depression (this might explain our save-the-world complex…), the first being Superman. 

Technology-wise, whether for better or worse we’ve brought the world Windows, Google, facebook, Twitter, and wikipedia (that last one was unanimously decided as definitely for the better.) Though a bit invasive, our (popular) culture and entertainment are renowned worldwide: Disney, Pixar, Hollywood, the Academy Awards, Mark Twain, Broadway, and any television series worth watching. We also invented pass-times like Scrabble, Taboo, Uno and Monopoly. 


I also took this opportunity to finally put to rest once and for all that the American Revolution did in fact take place before the French, with the concession that if it hadn’t been for their help, we may not have succeeded.

One of my favorite ideas our country has ever had are the National Parks, and I used a few clips from the 2009 series Ken Burns did for PBS on the from which this quote is from:

“I think the thing about the National Parks is that it’s an example of democracy. In other parts of the world there are certain areas that are preserved because some rich nobleman out of the goodness of his heart decided to decree it. But in the United States, you don’t have to be dependent of some rich guy being generous to you. To me that’s what national Parks mean. That’s a symbol of democracy. Democracy when it works well. At it’s best.’ – Juanita Green, Journalist

And as they had been asking me all year to tell them what American’s really thought about the French, I showed them this cute cartoon that I love. They even asked me at the end if American’s really call the French “frogs,” I didn’t have the hear to tell them that’s hw they’ve been referred to exclusively here.

A bientot.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

My vacation was going a little too well it would seem...

Weekend in Montpellier, stellar hike in the Mediterranean mountains, and day trip to Moissac...

I come home to the empty house after a rainy day in Moissac to....a flooded kitchen. I'm talking an inch of water over half the kitchen, and a leak directly over the kitchen table, where, gloriously, my new Macbook Pro sat in a puddle of water.

For those of you who haven't been following the story, a brief recap:

I was robbed in November and lost my Macbook Pro with all my photos, documents, and most importantly lesson plans on it.

December, January, and February were spent trying to get a computer to me from the states, which proved to be exponentially more difficult than anticipated, and ended with the computer being sent back to the US by French customs for no discernible reason, after multiple calls lasting hours a piece (read: approximately 1,5 hours of hold time plus 10 minutes of maddeningly unhelpful dialogue with French postal employees).

FINALLY in March when my parents came to visit me they were able to bring with them the computer in question with which I reconstructed all my lesson plans and what photos I could from friends. Needless to say a timely process.

Now, a surprise flash flood in my kitchen, the on the day I leave the computer on the kitchen table, and not in my room, when no one is home. That makes 2 computers in less than a year. I should get a frequent buyer card at Apple.

I clean up the mess, call Gisele to let her know about the leak, then have dinner with friends to try and boost my spirits. The next morning her partner Gilou comes by to check in on me and the leak, which, of course, by this point has stopped. We have a coffee and try to laugh about it, he tells me I should take a blow dryer to the computer as a last shot, then leaves. I set myself up with my hair dryer and the computer, and 2 mintues in all the power in the house goes out. I of course think it's the dryer but turns out there were general outages that day. What are the odds?

I decided to go out for the day for fear that the roof would cave in on me next.

Pretty unbelievable. That's all I have to say.

Linz

Pâques

Montpellier

For Easter weekend, and also the first weekend of my April vacation I went to Montpellier and Roquefort.

After my world wind February vacation where I went to Morocco and Hungry I wanted to stay in France as I'll be leaving so soon.

Square in Montpellier

My friend Sarah and I spent Friday to Sunday in Montpellier. Montpellier is a town further east towards the Côte d'Azur on the Mediterranean coast that I've wanted to visit for a while now. It was absolutely adorable. Nothing like Toulouse, all whitewashed stone and tons of hidden squares with clusters of trees and cafés.

On the way home on Sunday I stopped off in Roquefort to stay the night with a colleague and do a hike in the surrounding Corbières mountains.

The hike Easter Monday in Roquefort was absolutely unbelieveable. It was a 6 hour hike with stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea and snowcapped mountains all at the same time. The breeze smelled of rosemary and we saw wild irises, tuplips, and asparagus along the way. At the top we had a panoramic view of the coast where we could see Spain and Sète, a town about an hour and a half further east.

Monday I did a day trip to Moissac with Sarah and her parents (I work with her mom) to visit the Abbey of St. Pierre, built (partially) in the 600s, a famous site on the Pilgrimage trail of Santiago de Compostela.  

Aqueduct from the 18th century

Trail we took

View of the Mediterranean 

Trail with olive trees and old shepard's shelters

Wild irises