To a Woman Passing By

Posted on September 7, 2011 by ApollineR

This week, the subject of Illustration Friday website is mysterious. I have searched what it could evoke me and soon the poem “To a Woman Passing By” by French poet Baudelaire has started resonating in my head. I have drawn my vision of this poem. On a Paris street, at the very moment the poet’s eyes meet the captivating eyes of a stranger, he falls in love.

mysterious passer-by

To a Woman Passing By

The deafening road around me roared.
Tall, slim, in deep mourning, making majestic grief,
A woman passed, lifting and swinging
With a pompous gesture the ornamental hem of her garment,

Swift and noble, with statuesque limb.
As for me, I drank, twitching like an old roué,
From her eye, livid sky where the hurricane is born,
The softness that fascinates and the pleasure that kills,

A gleam… then night! O fleeting beauty,
Your glance has given me sudden rebirth,
Shall I see you again only in eternity?

Somewhere else, very far from here! Too late! Perhaps never!
For I do not know where you flee, nor you where I am going,
O you whom I would have loved, O you who knew it!

Charles Baudelaire (translation by Geoffrey Wagner)

Aboriginal graffitis in Vancouver

Posted on March 17, 2011 by ApollineR

Vancouver is not covered in tags still street art is present there. The City Hall has a project that enables graffiti-artists to paint a few authorized walls. In Vancouver, you find the same kind of graffitis as in other big cities but there are a few graffitis that stand out because they are directly influenced by art created by First Nations of the Pacific Coast of Canada. You can recognize the stylized patterns typical of indigenous art. This article features a few of those Vancouverite graffitis. Tangled figures and fantastic animals tell First Nations legends. You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The first photo shows a abandoned shop window. The graffiti depicts a bird. I would say that it is an eagle from its curved beak. The drawing style and the choice of colors (white, black and red) are characteristic of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest’s iconography. For them, the eagle represents power and wisdom.

Graffiti located at Broadway and Fraser Street

The left part and the right part of this other graffiti could represent the sun and the moon. The central part is truncated but you can recognize a fish. Its head is at the top and its tail at the bottom. I think it’s an orca because of its teeth. Native peoples see orca as the animal that reigns over the sea.

Graffiti located at Pacific Street and Seymour Street
photo Kyle Pearce (c) Creative Commons

The last graffiti which is situated under Granville Bridge is more difficult to decipher due to the tangle of the characters.
On the bottom right-hand corner, it is written “… and the raven brought the light into the world”. This sentence evokes a legend of the Haida people which tells that the raven has created the world but a dark world because it lacks light. Light belongs to an old man who keeps it locked up in a box. So the raven steals light to the old man and with this light he creates the sun, the moon and the stars.
We can see a big raven on the picture: its head is on the right and there is a bird’s foot at the bottom. However I am not able to find any trace of the sun. On the left there is a face that doesn’t look happy. Maybe it’s the old man, furious to have his light stolen?

Graffiti located under Granville Bridge at 4th Avenue

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have difficulty spotting the characters… or if you find the sun on the last picture.

Aboriginal Pavilion

Posted on March 12, 2010 by ApollineR

The Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has invited Indigenous people to participate in the organization of the Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This partnership is interested : the Olympic Games take place on Indigenous lands and VANOC was fearing an anti-Olympic movement. They prefered collaborating with the First Nations by funding new facilities and educational and cultural projects.

The aboriginal artistic influence can be seen in the Olympic logo (which depicts an inukshuk, a pile of stones built by Inuits), in the traditional patterns etched on the Olympic medals and in the opening ceremony that featured Aboriginal dancers.

An Aboriginal Pavilion was temporarily located in Downtown to promote the Aboriginal cultures during the Olympic Games.

The Aboriginal Pavilion was topped with a dome. A 360° movie was screened inside the dome. It showed images of the First Nations blending past and present, maybe to demonstrate that Aborigines belong to modern society. Other animations were organized such as dance performances.

The Aboriginal Pavilion by day ( (c) Ray Van Eng ) and by night ( (c) Susan Gittins )

A wood totem pole stood outside the pavilion. Totem poles are a Western Canadian First Nations’ tradition. Made up of stacked figures, a totem pole tells a story. You can recognize on the Pavilion’s totem pole, from top to bottom, a Thunderbird with spread wings, a whale (whose dorsal fin shows up in the middle of the totem pole), four faces representing four races of people and down, a bear.

Totem carved by Klatel-Bhi (c) Holly-Anne Burrows

By the Aboriginal Pavilion, steel and glass panels designed by artist Carey Newman combine contemporary materials with patterns inspired by some traditional indigenous motifs. He proves that you can come from a very ancient culture and at the same time be very modern.

The Aboriginal Pavilion gave a preview of Indigenous peoples’ cultural wealth. Even if it doesn’t change the fact that those peoples have to deal with a lot of problems (alcool, unemployment, high youth suicide rate…), Olympic Games have at least given a positive image of First Nations.

For more information:
The official website of the Aboriginal Pavilion

Urban Landscapes Exhibition in Paris

Posted on November 9, 2009 by ApollineR

I’m not an expert on modern art. But I like some contemporary works of art. Among them I like Hélène Hurot’s paintings that always speak to my imagination.

ville verte (c) Hélène Hurot - All rights reserved
Ville verte (which means “green city”, this painting reminds me of Vancouver)
(c) Hélène Hurot All rights reserved

This painting belongs to the series called “Urban Landscapes”. The ensemble has special meaning for me who am in North America. The paintings evoke impressive and gigantic skyscraper districts in North American big cities.

The “Urban Landscapes” exhibition runs through November 15, 2009 in Paris. I am not able to visit it because it is in France but I hope I will be luckier for the next exhibition.

Invitation to “Urban Landscapes” exhibition

For more information: Hélène Hurot’s official website

(Royal) British (Columbia) Museum

Posted on August 25, 2009 by ApollineR

Victoria’s Royal BC Museum welcomes an exhibition called “Treasures: The World’s Cultures from the British Museum”. More than 300 items lent by London’s British Museum are on display.

In British Columbia, there is no comparable museum to the British Museum or the Louvre with a rich collection of archæological artefacts from everywhere. The exhibition gives an overview of the British Museum thanks to works of art of all periods organized by civilization. We go from ancient Egypt to Mesopotamia, from ancient Greece to medieval Europe and from Asia to the Americas.

I visited the British Museum some time ago. I don’t know when I can return there. Thus it is fortunate that the British Museum comes to me.

The London’s museum has not lent its most famous works of art nevertheless you can see some very beautiful pieces: a 3 000-year-old Egyptian mummy, a small gold mask from Israel, the Lewis chessmen of the Middle Ages (apparently their replicas were featured in the first Harry Potter film) and a charcoal by Henri Matisse. There are also some objects made by natives of British Colombia. They were brought to England by navigator George Vancouver at the moment of his exploration of the West Coast of Canada in 1792.

The displayed objects are various but they have the craftmen’s great skills in common. I could spend hours admiring details of the objects. So I lingered in front of this Persian calligraphy by Dara Shikoh (the son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal). It is adorned with birds and flowers painted with great finesse

a page from an album of calligraphy copied by Dara Shikoh (c) The Trustees of the British Museum

At different points of the exhibition, animators explain what are some objects that you can handle and watch closely. For example, an animator talks about the invention of writing while showing inscriptions on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia (where Syria and Irak are today).

The exhibition runs through Sept. 30, 2009 in Victoria, BC.

For more information, see the Museum website

Character heads

Posted on August 15, 2008 by ApollineR

a head by Messerschmidt
photo (c) Fondation Cartier

I wonder whether this face is yawning or screaming.

This expression is easier to guess.

a head by Messerschmidt
photo (c) imagesource.art.com

I was surprised to learn that these heads were not sculpted by a contemporary artist but by a eighteenth-century sculptor, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. He was not successful at that time.
There are about fifty character heads. Most of them can be seen in different museums all over the world.

More expressions here.

Apollinaire’s Heart

Posted on May 15, 2008 by ApollineR

Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet. In a poem called calligram, the letters’ arrangement has a meaning. Here is an extract of the collection of poems Calligrammes:

Mon Coeur pareil à une flamme renversée

This calligram is carved on Apollinaire’s grave. The poet is buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The text in French is: Mon Cœur pareil à une flamme renversée
The translation in English could be: My Heart like an inverted flame

Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris

Posted on October 3, 2007 by ApollineR

I visited the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris during Heritage Days. The surroundings are nice and look like the Louvre Museum (it is normal because the museum is in a wing of the Louvre Palace). The museum is a maze of corridors and I had to ask several times how to get to my destination.

Decorative Arts, it is when daily objects become works of art. The museum presents some furniture, chests, chairs, tableware, jewellery etc. I liked the period rooms: there are for example a Renaissance bedroom, an 18th Century living room and the apartment of the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin. I was only disappointed with the Jean-Paul Gautier exhibition in the Fashion department. I found that the clothes were a little worn.

Some restorers were present on the occasion of Heritage Days. A tapestry-maker explained how he repaired old tapestries. I heard that the wall hangings in the Jeanne Lanvin’s apartment were restored in India. I didn’t know that offshoring concerned culture too .

Here are the pictures of my favourite works of art:

Louis Quinze canapé

A magnificent eighteenth century canapé. The style of this sofa is called Louis Quinze. I was not allowed to sit on it but it looks comfortable and is very long.

the Nénuphar guéridon

An Art Nouveau guéridon designed and manufactured by the furniture designer Louis Majorelle around 1902. The top is in the form of a water lily leaf.

tea set

And a tea set made around 1785.

With this furniture I could furnish a living room to my liking.

ApollineR

Favorites and Drawings by a Curious Eclectic

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