Miklos
« Je donne mon avis non comme bon mais comme mien. » — Michel de Montaigne

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14 octobre 2017

“What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.” (Helen Keller)

Classé dans : Arts et beaux-arts, Peinture, dessin, Sculpture — Miklos @ 11:41

B*** in front of the Mona Lisa, with my extended arm behind her.B*** in front of the Mona Lisa. Musée du Louvre.

I was recently solicited by a great guy, H***, in order to meet and guide a friend of his, B***, an impressively courageous 24 year-old blind woman, into the Orsay and Louvre museums. This turned out not only to be a privilege, but a transformative experience (for me). B***, who lives in Western Asia, had graduated last June in psychology. To quote her profile: “I’m a young trainer in youth field. I’ve been doing projects, activities, seminars etc. in NGOs working with disadvantaged groups especially people with disabilities, children and women. I’m involving events and activities for doing disability activism. I’m also writing in an online journal. I love writing, it opens my mind and makes me feel more confident by making decesions and acting.” And does she act! She came to Paris for a two-day stay, after having visited Malta and Rome. Alone. It was her wish to see the paintings in Orsay and the Louvre.

We started with the Orsay museum. It turned out that Orsay has no aids whatsoever for blind people – like a “tactile” room (as the Louvre does, see below) or descriptive audio guides. Frustration (mine) can lead to unconventional ideas: I suggested we go to the museum store, where I knew there were replicas of statues, and ask if she could touch them. The sales­woman readily agreed, and this allowed B*** to explore some of the sculptures of this museum with my explanations about the artists.

But what about the paintings? This turned out to be quite a different challenge. The use of such qualifiers as “big”, “small”, “great”, “amazing”, “striking” that we may use while standing in front of a work of art and sharing our feelings with a fellow visitor would provide no useful information to B***. I felt it was necessary to concentrate on being descriptive and factual: size of the painting, overall layout and shapes, colors, tonality and shades (B*** had at a time perceived colors), texture (of the skin, of the hair, of the clothing, of the buildings and the vegetation)1. Think about how to describe “objectively” the faces of the women in Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette, for instance, the soft skin, the dark eyes and eyebrows, the red lips and the so characteristic smile, the rosy cheeks, the shape of the faces, the way they hold their head… What about the differences between the settings of the couple of paintings of the famous Étretat cliff – angle, colors, weather and overall atmosphere? This was a first for me. I hadn’t consciously thought of works that way before, but felt I had to try my best to project what I saw rather than what I felt into her mind.

The following day we went to the Louvre. We first visited its touch gallery, which currently “features 18 casts that show the diversity of the museum’s sculpture collection, from ancient to modern times” illustrating the both clothed and unclothed body through time. Watching B***’s hands explore with such a light touch the scultpures was fascinating. But at times, especially with drapes folding in complex ways around (parts of) the some of the bodies, she got lost, so I took the liberty to lead her hand as gently as I could and explain what she was touching locally by describing the overall shape. Next to each work, there is a Braille notice identifying the work… but unfortunately only in French. At the entrance of that room, there is a bilingual panel (in normal alphabet), explaining the genres that were displayed in the room. The Braille translation below again was only in French, so I provided an oral translation of the text.

We then went to the Mona Lisa room with S*** who had joined us meanwhile (and who took the above photo). As we unfortunately couldn’t come to the museum at opening time, it was already full with dense hordes of visitors. We managed to find a small space at the far left of the barrier keeping them away from the painting, and I started describing the work to her. Just a couple of minutes later, a guard came and asked us to follow him: he brought us to another barrier much closer to the painting – maybe less that 1 m away – where I had never seen anyone standing. This allowed me to notice much subtler differences in colors and shades (e.g., in the clothing) that I had from the public standpoint, which I then attempted conveying to B***, together with the larger features of the painting – the overall shape (foreground, landscape background), her posture (body, arms, hands), detailed shape (face, cheeks, chin, eyelids…), colors, tonality and shades. As we weren’t allowed to stay very long there (we were in between the general public and the painting), my explanations had perforce to be cut short after a few minutes: for example, it would have been informative to explain why Renaissance Italian paintings had such half or quartier openings into the background (as can be seen in other paintings in that room).

After that painting, there was the challenge to describe Veronese’s immense (6.66 m x 9.90 m) Wedding Feast at Cana, which stands opposite that of Mona Lisa (so she wouldn’t be bored only watching the back of tourists taking selfies without even looking at her): the palace structure and its levels, the people – their social classes and functions, their clothing, their attitudes and expressions… –, the animals (including the dog’s head in the upper left corner), and so many other aspects.

We ended up by visiting part of the Ancient Egypt section – that of the 4,400 year-old Seated Scribe with its poised position and calmly powerful expression, or – to me some of the most touching works I have seen – those of couples seated side by side, with a very formal and stiff attitude in the front, and a tender one in the back, where either or both have an arm discreetly holding their spouse around the back or on the shoulder. The one pictured below has the additional characteristic of being ever so slightly bent, which is hardly noticeable from the front: they must be an older, loving couple.

Transformative indeed.

A married couple and their child, seen from behind, with the wife's hand on her husband's shoulder. 4th dynasty, 2620-2500 B.C. Musée du Louvre.A married couple and their child. 4th dynasty, 2620-2500 B.C. Musée du Louvre. (front view)

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1. Come to think of it, it reminds me of the way I introduced over 45 years ago another handicaped (in this case: paralyzed) person – my friend Guy – to classical music, by having him listen to Bach’s Cantata BWV 106 (Gottes Zeit). Before every movement, I would draw his attention to melodic lines (by singing them the best I could), harmony and polyphony, textures of instruments, voices of soloists and choir. I had never done it before (nor after, as it turns out), and even 40 years later he would tell me how it transformed his life. Not to speak of mine.

20 septembre 2016

Kollektsya ! art contemporain eu URSS et en Russie 1950-2000. MNAM, Paris

Classé dans : Arts et beaux-arts, Peinture, dessin, Photographie, Sculpture — Miklos @ 22:03


Leonid Sokov : Serrure faucille et marteau. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Leonid Solov : Lunettes pour chaque soviétique. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Alexander Kosolapov : Triptyque Malevitch-Marlboro. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Grisha Bruskin : Croquis pour Lexique fondamental. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Dmitri Prigov : Le Coin / GLASNOST. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Vladimir Yankilevsky : Portrait d’homme. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Andreï Filippov : La Cène. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Sergeï Bugaev-Afrika : À John Cage. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Valery Koshlyakov : Ministère des affaires étrangères. Cliquer pour agrandir.


Oleg Kotelnikov : Portrait de Nikolaï Reshtnyak. Cliquer pour agrandir.

►►► Autres photos ici.◄◄◄

8 septembre 2016

Quelques antiquités grecques et romaines au musée du Louvre

Classé dans : Arts et beaux-arts, Photographie, Sculpture — Miklos @ 8:55


Aphrodite du type dit « du Capitole » (détail). IIe s. ap. J.-C.
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Io (?) ou Callisto, dite « Suppliante Barberini » (détail). Ier s. av. J.-C. ou Ier-IIe s. ap. J.-C. Italie.
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Athéna dite « Minerve Ingres ». Ier-IIe s. ap. J.-C. (?). Rome.
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Le nu masculin dans la sculpture grecque classique (430-370 av. J.-C.).
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Hermès à la sandale, dit « Cincinnatus ». IIe s. ap. J.-C.
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Inconnu. Ier s. av. J.-C. – Ier s. ap. J.-C.
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Statuette du poème Euripide assis. Trouvée à Rome (colline de l’Esquilin) en 1704. Marbre.
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►►► Autres photos ici.◄◄◄

14 mai 2016

Bacchus comme vous ne l’avez jamais vu et autres antiquités romaines quelque peu restaurées

Classé dans : Arts et beaux-arts, Photographie, Sculpture — Miklos @ 17:06


Bacchus. IIe siècle après J-C.
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Maure, dit Le Moro. Époque romaine et début du XVIIe siècle. Italie.
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Relief, dit Le Trône de Saturne. Italie. Ier siècle après J.-C. ou XVIe siècle.
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13 mai 2016

Promenade à la Sainte Chapelle et au musée de Cluny


Sainte Chapelle. Cliquer pour agrandir. Plus de photos ici.


Sainte Chapelle. Cliquer pour agrandir. Plus de photos ici.


Résurrection des morts. Vers 1200. Déposé de la Sainte Chapelle au musée de Cluny.
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Tenture des Arts libéraux. L’Arithmétique (détail). 1520. Musée de Cluny.
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Pietà de Tarascon (détail). Avant 1457. Musée de Cluny.
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