FRENCH LANDSCAPE AND THE MODERN VISION by Magdelana Dabrowski New York, Museum of Modern Art: 2000 758.144 DAB
The period of 1880-1920 in France saw familiar landscapes, both urban and rural become a subject of intense scrutiny from painters and photographers (armed with the latest invention - the camera). As more and more people migrated to cities for work and the national government embarked on an aggressive program of road and railroad building, people from the cities were able to vacation in the country. No museum in the United States has a collection better suited to illustrating the relationship between the painted landscape and the photographic one.
THE FAUVE LANDSCAPE by Judi Freeman New York, Abbeville Press: 1990 758.109 FRE
Also the product of a museum exhibition, The Fauve Landscape originated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The time period is narrow, about 1904-1908, but the artists ranged widely in search of subject matter, throughout France and Belgium, an invading army -armed with paint brushes instead of weapons. Lush, high-voltage colors applied to canvas with brio, and it was the bright colors and the vehemence of their application that earned these artists their nickname that translates as 'the wild ones.'
THE DISCOVERY OF FRANCE: A Historical Geography by Graham RobbNew York, W. W. Norton: 2007 944 ROB
"I was brough up in an age when the French, still more or less ignorant of their own country, had not yet begun to travel." - Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954)
The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard wrote that we live life forward but understand it backward. Graham Robb inverts this notion to reveal how recently the France we think we know came into existence.
In the first millennium the place then known as Gaul was divided in two, between the land of Oc and the land of Oil, depending on how people pronounced the word 'yes', the division corresponded roughly to the influence of the Franks in the north and west and that of the Romans, followed by the Burgundians, in the south. People worked the land differently and raised different crops: in the north there were open fields, in the central area were woods, and in the south people favored a patchwork of fields enclosed by hedges and paths.
Rural France, which was most of it until the 20th century, had two seasons: the season of labor and the season of idleness. The calculus of caloric expenditure determined how people went about their work and moved from place to place. Isolationism proved to be a good strategy for keeping scarce resources, especially precious food, at home, so there was little interest in commerce. During the long winter season people huddled together, even including their animals, doing as little as possible to conserve heat and food - hibernation, Robb calls it. For centuries it was left to pilgrims, peddlers, beggars, and bandits to roam the poorly charted countryside. When Sir Walter Scott published his novel Quentin Durward (1823) his invented descriptions of the charms of the Loire Valley brought tourists there. The well to do lived in the bourgs, or cities. The enterprise of smugglers kept borders porous and spread some small wealth to the countryside as a result.
Families organized themselves around basic necessities in ways that the middle classes found embarrassing and distasteful, explaining the blank spots in official histories. Marriages were only formalized when needed to legitimate children, giving rise to the maxim "A woman gives birth after three months, but only the first time." Youngsters were often dispatched on their own to the city, where they earned their keep as servants, prostitutes or pimps to the rich. When hospitals began to be built during the 19th century, their construction often included a tour d'abandon, a revolving barrel that allowed parents to abandon their babies with no questions asked.
How difficult was it, to get around in the Ancien Regime? Louis XIV, the Sun King and instigator of grand infrastructure programs, including the laying out of royal boulevards, never traveled without his own crew of road-menders. Though the rich traveled by coach, it was not unusual for an unlucky passenger to be thrown from a coach as it hit a bump. The poor traveled by foot or, if they were lucky, might have the use of a dog cart. Pilgrimages were the only tourism that most people got to experience, which explains the revelry and bartering that accompanied the praying, and the attempts of the Church to suppress them.
Like transportation, communication was slow and laborious and contributed to the patchwork of place and identity. Robb dubs novelist Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) his "century's greatest expert on gossip and pre-industrial communications" for his theory that gossip traveled cross country at nine miles per hour.
Following the French Revolution, the new central government divided France into 91 administrative departements, small enough so that citizens could travel to their government offices in a single day. It also created the post of national Inspector of historic monuments to foster a sense of national pride. Prosper Merimee (1803-1970), author of Carmen, held the post from 1834 to 1852, spending three full years on the road. Thanks to his efforts, Vezaley, Saint-Denis and Strasbourg Cathedral were saved from the wrecking ball.
Robb is entertaining as he explains the recent origins of 'ancient' traditions. La Cuisine barely existed until economic development invented it to promote local foodstuffs. The Tour de France, a formal event since 1903, merely ratified what amateurs had been doing for decades. Millions had been liberated from the confines of their villages by the invention of this cheap "mechanical horse." If you owned a bicycle, Robb reminds us, you could broaden your search for work or a mate, "which is why the bicycle has been credited with increasing the average height of the French population by reducing the number of marriages between blood relations."
The nation's school system, under the Third Republic, sought to eradicate illiteracy. Smarting from a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Germans in the War of 1870, the government also used the schools to force children to give up their local patois and to learn standard French. The draconian program has been called "interior colonization" as humiliation and corporal punishment were routinely used.
Illustrations in order of appearance: Longivy: Le Soir; Le Crachin, Morgat; Le travail aux Champs.
These illustrations and more by Henri de Riviere (1864-1951) are available at the website http://www.henri-riviere.org/
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