Marc Chagall - 20th century painter extraordinaire!

Monday, 16 May 2011

I realize that I have done an awful lot of blogging with a macabre twist lately. My apologies, I am finishing up a haunted guide to France and have a bit of a one track mind. Here is a little artistic cleansing of the pallet for you.... 

I can't believe it took me this long to blog about Marc Chagall. One of my favorite Belarusian-French Jewish painters! 

Marc Chagall (née Moishe Shagal) 1887 - 1985

To be honest, I am not quite sure whether I adore his work for its original surrealistic twist or because, when I was doing my stint at the Sorbonne Univeristy in Paris at the tender age of 19, I met and fell madly in love with a stunning Parisian of Argentinean descent who simultaneously introduced me to the Cure and Marc Chagall (we went to the George Pompidou Center for a massive exhibition--wow!). Hot, intellectual, cultured boyfriend vs cool artist??? Like a Pavlovian dog, I now have a conditioned reflex whenever I see a piece of work by Chagall ... great memories rise immediately into my conscious brain!

Oh, and, on an aside: the Pavlovian conditioning process was a major theme in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. One of my favorite author's, one of my favorite books. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. 

Oh, and, on another aside: As I am busy querying a super cool, historical, French, nonfiction manuscript I just finished translating--entitled ADP: Secret of the Knights Templar (see my website)--I ran into a very intriguing and fabulous quote by Aldous Huxley's literary agent, the late Dorris Halsey:

"Let's be realistic and do the impossible!"

I love, love, love that. A motto to live by!

Bon, back to Monsieur Chagall. As I have blabbed on and on, you can click here to read all about his life and you can scroll down to see some of his fantastic, magical, inspiring thought-provoking work.

Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel

For some reason, I just adore this one

Daydreaming

La Branche

He did many stained glass windows: for the Reims and Metz cathedrals, United Nations and Jerusalem windows in Israel.

Joli, n'est ce pas?

Gros bisous de l'art extraordinaire et a très bientôt!

Love, Charley

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French Inspiration - Les Deux Magots

Thursday, 17 March 2011

Let's go back in time about one hundred years to Paris, France. World War I, or the Great War as they called it then, sparked the Dada movement amongst writers and artists. This movement's policy was primarily anti-war and anti-bourgeois; artists believed that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had brought about conflict and war. 

During the war, Dr. André Breton worked with injured soldiers using Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical methods. One of his patients was writer Jacques Vaché, who greatly intrigued him. After the war, in Paris, Breton began a literary journal called Littérature where he and other writers began experimenting with Automatic Writing. The goal was to write utterly spontaneously without censoring the thought process. Dreams were recorded and published simply as they had been remembered. The more they wrote, the more writers they attracted. 

Dadaism morphed into Surrealism.

We all know that Surrealism gave birth to phenomenal artists like Magritte and Salvador Dali:

Allow these visual images to give you an idea as to what the Surrealistic movement did to the written word. The goal was liberate the imagination!

Enter café Les Deux Magots in Paris' chic Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood. Beginning life in 1813 as a luxury fabric store, it morphed into a wine shop, and then became a famous café for writers and intellectuals in 1914.

Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Oscar Wilde, Saint Exupéry, Francois Truffaut, Pablo Picasso, all flocked to Les Deux Magots cafe where they sat for hours, debating, philosophizing, arguing, writing. Can't you just imagine them, legs crossed, cigarettes in hand, the debris of tea and espresso cups scattered about the tables ....

How many written works of art were born there?

Every singe morning, Jean-Paul Sartre came to Les Deux Magots and wrote for hours on end. Since 1933, Le Prix des Deux Magots has existed, awarding a prize each year to the best French novel. 

All my life I've wanted to be a writer. Pulling up stakes and moving to France has helped me to break down the cultural and social barriers that kept me from being able to freely express myself. And I believe that is the key to being a writer: freely expressing yourself with no social rules and regulations to hold you back, no little voice in the back of your head chanting, 'What is everyone going to think about what you're writing'. 

I moved to France, bien sur, a little extreme! Do whatever you have to do to get into your zone. Open up your mind and just let things flow into your head and out through your fingertips. Allow yourselves to be inspired as I have been from these great French writers. Find yourselves a little cafe and order up a steaming mug of tea or coffee. And write spontaneously without censoring your thought process. 

Voila, bonne continuation de l'écriture et a demain!

Love, Charley

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Paul Cézanne, French Post-Impressionist and Cubism painter

Monday, 17 January 2011

Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906), French Post-Impressionist painter said to be the bridge between 19th century Impressionism and 20th century Cubism. Picasso and Matisse referred to him as "the father of us all".

Now there's a grandiose opening line if ever there was one! 

Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence, just south of Lyon. His father was a wealthy banker and his mother a spirited, vivacious, and romantic person. She was his inspiration. Cézanne went to school and studied drawing; there, he met Émile Zola and Baptistin Baille with whom he became inseperable. Later, his father wished for him to study Law, but Cézanne  objected and pursued his interest in art. Eventually his father gave in to his wishes and supported him financially. Upon his father's death, Cézanne received a very large inheritance meaning he never had to suffer from financial worries and was utterly free to pursue his art. 

In the beginning of his career, Cézanne focused on painting landscapes and imaginative figures within them.  This developed in a desire to simplify nature into its geometric essential forms. In the beginning his work was soundly rejected, finally in 1866 he had his first submission to the Salon in Paris. He enjoyed public recognition and financial success in his lifetime, but preferred to stay out of the lime light and painted primarily in the south of France, in his beloved Provence. 

His work is broken down into the following categories: 

Dark period, Paris 1861-187

Impressionist period, Provence and Paris (1870-1878)

Mature period, Provence (1878-1890)

Final period, Provence (1890-1905)

In 1906, he died at the age of 67 as a result of catching pneumonia while painting a landscape in a field and being caught in a downpour. He is buried in Aix-en-Provence. 

Paul Cézanne was one of the most influential artists of the 19th century and the father of Cubism.

Voila! Gros bisous des beaux tableaux et a demain.

Love, Charley

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Eugene Delacroix

Monday, 20 September 2010

The first time I saw a painting by French artist, Eugene Delacroix, was during a visit to the Louvre with my dear uncle Alvin. I stood transfixed in front of the enormous format while Alvin rattled off personal and professional points of interest about the painter. Alvin was a walking encyclopedia about anything to do with European history, art, and classical music. He single-handedly taught me much about European culture; it is thanks to him that I live in France today. 

Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863, Self Portrait. 

From the get go, Delacroix was the leader in the French Romantic movement in art. His later work, with its exotic nature, would inspire the Symbolist movement. 

His first major piece in 1822, The Barque of Dante. 

I love the dramatic physical gestures of the people, you can feel the emotion shooting out of the canvas.

He took a trip to England in 1825. There he painted his only full-length portrait. 

Portrait of Louis-Auguste Schwiter. 

Quelle dandy! 

Delacroix painted Death of Sardanapalus in 1827-8. A painting of the death of the Assyrian king Sardanapalus. The literary source of this story is from a play by his favorite poet, Byron. 

This is the painting that so transfixed me so many years ago. It is in the Louvre, from floor to ceiling and takes up an entire wall.

Then there is the very famous Liberty Leading the People, painted in 1830. 

Delacroix lived in a fairly turbulent time in France: from King Charles X, to King Louis Philippe, to a Revolution in 1848, which led to the election of President Louis Napoleon III. 

Liberty Leading the People was purchased by the French government, but was hidden from the public eye until the election of Napoleon III. It is also in the Louvre. 

Delacroix traveled to Spain and North Africa just after the French conquered Algeria. During his travels, he produced over a 100 paintings and sketches. This trip influenced his work for the duration of his life.

My personal favorite is Lion Hunt. His ability to paint animals is truly intense and amazing. 

 

Another painting I quite admire is Medea About to Kill Her Children. So dramatic!

I am not an art critic. I am not an expert. It is not my goal to inform my readers of every absolute detail. I am simply writing this blog to show you all of the lovely things I encounter in my life in France. I may get things wrong. I trust I will get most things right! I am here to have fun and share.

If you would like to read more about Eugene Delacroix and see a good-sized collection of his works, visit this website. 

Last, but not least, Frederic Chopin.

Chopin, an unfinished portrait.  

Delacroix passionately loved Shakespeare and Byron. He was a dandy, a brilliant conversationalist and had a contradictory personality where he sometimes loved to be surrounded by the Paris social life and others times where he needed to hide out in the country and get away from it all. 

He was friends with the likes of George Sand, Chopin, Liszt, among others. 

Visit the Louvre, go to Versailles, scour the net, and watch the film Impromptu. 

Gros bisous de Delacroix et a demain!

Love, Charley

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