Arles encore
August 4, 2021
This new urban landscape is refreshing – renovated industrial buildings, new landmark tower and parkland accesible to all until early evening – and stimulating in conception and realisation. read about it here
” its nearly cubist geometry, coupled with the spectacle of its 11,000 stainless steel panels, inscribes it definitively in the Arles landscape. Conceived as an ode to the ancient town, Luma Arles has become like a tower of Babel for modern times” says fisheye. ” It’s clear Frank (Gehry the architect of the tower) hates the French” a comment on Dezeen.
Existing buildings have been refaced . . . the end of the Grand Halle will be covered with wisteria in a couple of years . . .
. . . and inside a work of Pierre Huyghe ‘After UUmwelt’ where worlds with animals, artificial intelligence and materials compose their own stories – sculpture and video – and manage to instil a sense of familiarity in an imense space (5,000m2). Interesting floor too . .
In La Mécanique Générale, I was taken with the aroma from the bands and swathes of eucalyptus forming the soft structure for Kapwani Kiwanga – Flowers for Africa – based on images that show floral arrangements and, in essence, that’s what it was which were present at a moment of historical importance when an African country gained independence. The flowers and foliage are left to dry so the decay evokes history, nostalgia and a sense of melancholy showing the failings of modernity and political degradation – social transformation, disenchantment and collapse. Stunning.
The park is only recently planted so work in progress and difficult and unfair to comment at this stage. I shall return . . .
. . and have lunch under here again.
In the Drum Cafe in the Tower, some walls are made of sunflower pulp and concrete and the pipes are exposed . . .
. . . and in The Main Gallery also in the Tower, Maja Hoffman’s Collection/LUMA Foundation is an eclectic grouping of conceptual pieces and labelled impermanent so presumably more to see in the future . . .
The interior reflects the exterior perfectly. Arles and the Arlésiennes are lucky.
In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords from generation to generation. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Generation to Generation.
And a post from before.
near and far – lockdown – the 1 km walk
May 6, 2020
As of early May, we are allowed to walk for an hour or within 1 km from the abode. My usual pace is 4/5kms an hour and rather cheekily I’ve developed a walk in a quadrant that sort of fits the government rules as well as satisfying personal need. We are lucky here as interesting and absorbing walks are possible in all four directions and, as my habit is to look to the distance and so ‘far’, as well as to plants at close quarters, and so ‘near’, then I thought to catalogue an easy and favourite walk to look back at in the future. Out of the village to the east on Chemin des Rosiers/Chemin des Huguenots before moving south through the vineyards and noting on the verge Gladiolus (above) which I think is G.illyricus as against G. byzantinus and just a single clump. Plenty of Lathyrus clymenum (below), a member of the pea family, clambers wherever possible . . .
. . . from here the view to the village acros cereals and vines through the late morning haze. And then turning 180 degrees to view the statuesque fig orchards where foliage and fruit have suffered recent cold temperatures resulting in a late show . . .
. . . the elder (Sambucus) is very floriferous this year so opening up for gallons of elderflower cordial while, low down, clover romps attractively along the ground.
The old mill was accessible four years ago but now just a landmark slowly disappearing and seemingly going to sleep under encroaching ivy. However, it is here that the orchestra, chorus and prima donnas fill the air – frogs, woodpeckers, nightingales – a big presence this year – and hoopoes create the musical cloud around and overhead while below there is scuttling in the bottom of the hedges and a fluttering higher up. Stand and listen . . .
. . . unassuming dogwood flowers now and the view to the village is framed with dwarf oak. Onward down to the river Tave – more a stream here – the track is sheltered and shaded with overhanging branches of ash, walnut, alder and poplars . . .
. . . it’s a delightful track and very welcome after the open areas in full sun. Onwards to the west and the banks supporting the fields are full of a country style mix of coquelicots et chardons – early summer is sublime n’est-ce-pas?
Retuning up to the north and views in the distance of the village and church – and then the place, or the square filled with plane trees, empty now but maybe soon – filled with folks – where I live (house in background) and home again but off out again tomorrow.
On lockdown, I’m back reading One Art Elizabeth Bishop Letters, for possibly the fifth or sixth time – I love her work. And her fragility is so close. EB revered Marianne Moore having met her in her early 20’s while she was at Vassar and the friendship and mentorship continued for decades. I find M Moore’s poetry challenging on the academic level but revere it and the fascination remains. So:
is some such word
as the chord
Brahms had heard
from a bird,
sung down near the root of the throat:
it’s the downy little woodpecker
spiralling a tree –
up up up like mercury:
a not long
sparrow-song
of hayseed
magnitude –
a tuned reticence with rigour
from strength at the source. Propriety is
Bach’s Solfegietto-
harmonica and basso.
The fish-spine
on firs, on
somber trees
by the sea’s
walls of wave-worn rock – have it; and
a moonbow and Bach’s cheerful firmness
in a minor key
It’s an owl – and – a – pussy –
both – content
agreement.
Come, come. It’s
mixed with wits;
it’s not a graceful sadness. It’s
resistance with bent head, like foxtail
millet’s. Brahms and Bach,
no; Bach and Brahms. To thank Bach
for his song
first, is wrong.
Pardon me;
both are the
unintentional pansy – face
uncursed by self – inspection; blackened
because born that way. Marianne Moore Propriety
mind’s luck to live – collection lambert
December 19, 2019
At the collection lambert in December looking at works from the permanent collection.
The breakthroughs that occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the new ways of considering art that they led to, fostered artistic practices in the last 60 years and nurtured Yvon Lambert’s vision
‘Minimal art, conceptual art and land art, fields in which Yvon Lambert was one of the very first proponents in Europe, start off this new itinerary at the museum, in the company of some of the main players in these foundational artistic movements’. – from the website.
For me the interior and exterior compositions are as compelling as the installations, photography, video and small amount of figurative painting . . .
. . . in front of the window, a minute silk pillow (Pillow for the Dead by Rei Naito) in a glass case shrouded in reflection of the plane trees in the entrance courtyard and close up of a pile of wooden masks dumped on the floor of one of the rooms . . .
. . . looking again into the courtyard, a grandmother walking and holding a small baby in her arms – she looked charmimg in the space.
In a corner, smashed tea glasses tea vases (Erratum by Latifa Echakhch) and a glass sphere in the right angled gallery on the top floor where most of the figurative painting was hung. It was a relief to get here – the circulation is problematic but interesting . . .
. . . a few installations use sound. This very large head (Kamoya by Marguerite Hummeau) groans – I preferred it in reflection . . .
. . . looking down at some pots in a courtyard and yes, it is an installation, and looking up at the canopy of planes so hence the poem by Alison Fell.
In the ghost-mist above the rooftops
planes stalk one another
in spirals, punctilious,
Like the rakings of a sand-garden
In which someone might sit
and count his blessings.
Some bits of luck these last
Few days: ground has a good
fell to the heels, hair
Likes to crouch under it hat,
fingertips nest nicely
In their woollen gloves.
It’s the nose’s luck to be
stuck so firmly to a face,
it’s the mind’s luck to live
in the limitless house of the head. December Lightyear Alison Fell
Son oeil, à l’horizon de lumière gorgée,
Voit des galères d’or, belles comme des cygnes
Sur un fleuve de pourpre et de parfums dormir.
(He sees, on the horizon filled with light,
Golden galleons as lovely as swans,
Moored on a broad river of scented purple.)
Je me mire et me vois ange! et je meurs, et j’aime
—Que la vitre soit l’art, soit la mysticité—
A renaître, portant mon rêve en diadème,
Au ciel antérieur où fleurit la Beauté.
(I can see my reflection like that of an angel!
And I feel that I am dying, and, through the medium
Of art or of mystical experience, I want to be reborn,
Wearing my dream like a diadem, in some better land
Where beauty flourishes.) Stéphane Mallarmé
The sky forms an important part of the composition when designing and developing gardens – a fact that is often ignored. Here at La Louve, the garden maker Nicole de Vésian, understood this fact. Her ethos for this garden was to structure and transform the steeply sloping site and echo the forms of the landscape in the Luberon. Read more about the garden here:
The natural growth of the Garrigue landscape – mostly evergreen plants – is mirrored in the planting within the terraced garden. Large scale – the beyond – is transformed into small scale by clipping and controlling. Stone is also revealed and positioned as a sculptural element . . .
. . . so the inert, rigid property of stone sits alongside the living organisms of the plants. The forms can be similar but the textures contrast.
Moving down from the higher terraces – Terrasse de réception and Terrasse de Belvédere (shown in the photos above) – to the Terrasse du bassin where the quince (Cydonia oblonga) provides some shade and the layout changes to embrace longer internal views. I remain a tad ambivalent to this garden room – the bassin I found clumsy and the circulation here seemed confused. However our group of 20+ managed quite well with not much ‘after you’ as this garden is small scale – designed to please one person – so the issue of how a private garden can transform into public space is interesting. I felt we destroyed the atmosphere . . .
. . . I did enjoy the personal touches that have been retained.
And I also enjoyed the windows of short and also long views that the garden offers.
Louisa Jones has written about this garden primarily in ‘Nicole de Vésian: Gardens, Modern Design in Provence’ and also in her great books ‘Gardens in Provence’; ‘Mediterranean Landscape Design Vernacular Contemporary’ and ‘Mediterranean Gardens A Model for Good Living’. She theorises and justifies and explains so well.
Good to see the iris and would have been good to see many more architectural invadors thrusting through such as Cynara. Apparently Christopher Lloyd enjoyed these dramatic and seemingly random intrusions during his visit years ago. But of course they were planned as de Vésian was a master.
The recently planted lavender field and how it looked when mature (a scan from double page spread in Mediterranean Gardens – A Model for Good Living Louisa Jones. Keeping with the original Vésian idea of dome clipping the alternates is planned.
Do I feel the garden has become a mausoleum? Yes. The owners have kept true to the original ideas and should be applauded but what must it be like tending, controlling, clipping away without inserting personal creativity. To discuss.
Zephyr returns and brings fair weather,
and the flowers and herbs, his sweet family,
and Procne singing and Philomela weeping,
and the white springtime, and the vermilion.
The meadows smile, and the skies grow clear:
Jupiter is joyful gazing at his daughter:
the air and earth and water are filled with love:
every animal is reconciled to loving.
But to me, alas, there return the heaviest
sighs, that she draws from the deepest heart,
who took the keys of it away to heaven:
and the song of little birds, and the flowering fields,
and the sweet, virtuous actions of women
are a wasteland to me, of bitter and savage creatures.
Petrach sonnet 310 Zephiro torna, e’l bel tempo rimena’
Sometimes the continuous present of life becomes relentless making it difficult to step off. On looking back at posts done – and so few – over the last 24 months, that has happened here . . . but enough soul searching and time to reconsolidate. Strangely the desire and principal reason to visit the gardens of Fort St André in Villeneuve-lez-Avignon was to experience the flowering of the roses. Hélas I discovered on this crucial and much delayed visit that the roses had disappointed so much over the years that they had been pulled out . . . so no roses to admire but much else to discover and appreciate.
Such as a small town park – natural and informal in feel – with 360 degree views spanning the Fort to the north, as above, and the Rhone below Mont Ventoux to the east; Avignon to the south and the Alpilles to the west.
Wandering through the town, there is much to enjoy . . . including the planting of Acanthus. Thoughts of the forum in Rome where Acanthus grew in lavish abandon flooded back from memories of more than thirty years ago.
The gardens are terraced so panoramic views can’t be ignored. Close up compositions also invite some study. Not herms as such but rather classical forms with a whimsical character.
Magnificant vaults support the exterior terraces . . .
. . . views through the access frame the compositions of evergreen planting. Apparently the roses struggled within the setting here of extreme exposure to the winds hurtling down the Rhone with the elevated cold position and also the poor soil structure on the rock form base. Some trees show their struggle with the climate but others have seeded, settled and occupied where they can.
There were always olive groves here. and other edible plants. The Abbaye was founded in 10C on the site where Sainte Cesaire lived before that time. She left her husband to live here in a grotto as a hermit – perhaps that rings true.
From the Chapelle . . .
. . . and into the poem. Over the years of a human life and over the centuries of periods of history.
Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay.
Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.
Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.
You must change said,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose,
Petals fade
That wings may rise
Borne on the wind.
You are changing
said death to the maiden, your wan face
To memory, to beauty.
Are you ready to change?
Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass
All your life long
For the unknown, the unborn
In the alchemy
Of the world’s dream?
You will change,
says the stars to the sun,
Says the night to the stars. Kathleen Raine Change
the garden of artists
May 4, 2018
An invitation by Mediterranean Gardening France to see the garden of 2 artists in St Remy de Provence. The view from M. Joseph Bayol’s studio on the first floor of his house across the wisteria to the bassin . . .
. . . just a small area of his studio packed with canvases, collections, materials and a few palettes with one below . . .
. . . the bassin formally positioned with three cupressus at the far end and two very large and well proportioned metal structures on either side to support climbing roses. Scale and proportion are exquisitely handled in this garden superbly maintained by Mme Bayol. I use these superlatives in acknowledgement of both horticultural and aesthetic prowess. A garden to delight – purely personal and imaginatively handled. It shows love.
An informal pond inhabited by noisy frogs is well hidden but a charming discovery and typical of the elements and spaces to find unexpectedly on the journey around the garden . . .
. . . roses in full glory here in Provence at the start of May. Either clambering up an immense cupresses or a single bloom in a shady passageway.
The wisteria – gentle, elegant, discreet + certainly not the blowsy form – has a sculptural woven + twisted trunk. The finials on the rose pergola – are equally underplayed . . .
. . . roses framing the entrance to the green house and quite wonderful cross views across the garden sheltered and hidden within a Provence town. One of the best gardens I’ve seen for a long while. Personal and poetic – a dream.
a few other days out to gardens with the MGF (I’m a tad smitten with this group):
https://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2017/09/23/at-the-ecological-garden-au-jardin-ecologique/
https://juliafoggterrain.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/un-jardin-anglais-but-is-it/
Summer: for a few days
you lay around with us
breathed in pollen,
counted aphids,
watched us drop
one by one on to the path
where the scent
was especially heavy. Rose multiflora Jo Shapcott
Richard Serra – an installation, a sculpture, a site specific sculpture – at Chateau la Coste to be viewed and interacted with on the Art and Arhcitecture walk around the domain. Seemingly I just snap away at things I like nowadays . . .
. . . remnants of the old farming estate have been kept such as the threshing floor outside a new chapel which I didn’t photograph. A more interesting building ‘Four Cubes to Contemplate our Environment- a maze like structure from Tadao Ando. A palimpsest of translucent layers/facades offering plenty to absorb and think about . . .
. . . on the way down to The Meditation Bell.
The Oak Room (Andy Goldsworthy), outside above and inside below, caught the imagination of the kids.
Big names here – Gehry, Ando, Bourgeois, Benech, Sigimoto – in this large glamorous and glossy winery vineyard cafe dining shop gallery space ‘art escape’. Most likely the Ai Weiwei ‘Mountains and Seas’ might have flown away as my visit was some time ago . . . but I remember the very very beautiful work.
By contrast, also near Aix en Provence, a jardin remarquable, in a small town – Éguilles. Max and Anne Sauze have created somehing special in a relatively small space around one lone tree. Now there’s more and consequently increased shade and lots of bamboo. Max, the master of metal, is also a master of arrangements, of collections . . .
. . . and of pleating paper. All objets are recycled and put together to form whimsical and quirky and thought provoking ‘things’.
Mostly site specific and crossing from design to architeture to horticulture but intensely personal.
In every corner and on all surfaces, he can’t stop himself – thank goodness.
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all
this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand: the bat
holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
under
a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
feels a
flea, the base-
ball fan, the statistician–
nor is it valid
to discriminate against ‘business documents and
school-books’; all these phenomena are important. One must
make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
result is not poetry,
nor till the poets among us can be
‘literalists of
the imagination’–above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’, shall
we have
it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry. Marianne Moore Poetry
A busy month of eclectic experiences starting with the city – looking from the 6th floor of the Pompidou Centre across the panorama . . .
. . . and looking down onto a canopy of plane trees. Here to see . .
Cy Twombly’s work from a career spanning 60 years. It was a marvellous exhibition; sadly over now. ‘Untitled’ painted in Rome during his minimal and conceptual phase in 1970’s to . . .
the ‘Rose Series’ Gaeta 2008 drawn from influence/ inspiration/ silent dialogue with Rilke’s poems. Stunning and thought provoking and an exhibition that has kicked me into reading Homer again – what a delight.
City to coast and plant buying. As equally pleasurable as being immersed in paintings. At Pépinière Filippi, plants suitable for dry gardening are displayed in a garden setting – this below is perhaps yucca spp – possibly Yucca rostrata – as well as . . .
. . . in the nursery. I can’t describe the excitement and anticipation of seeing lines of pots and the plants that they hold – mad I know.
And then it’s off to Bouzigues for some seafood to be enjoyed with a good view of Sète.
Coast to country and walking for a few days in the Cévennes. Through the chestnut woods and over streams passing dry stone walls coated in mosses and lichen. Moss is a plant but lichen a type of fungus needing algae so a symbiotic relationship . . .
. . . we encountered some history too – a group of huts set on a plateau -restored in hommage to the protestants who fought in the Camisards’ War in early 18th C. They fought a guerilla warfare ambushing the King’s men and them melting back into the wooded countryside. Locals also hid in the the buildings in the 1940’s – the Nazis being too lazy to climb through the dense landscape.
In Saint Hilaire-de-Lavit, forgotten vehicles and a wondrous chêne vert in the graveyard . . .
. . . and iris and wisteria still in bloom.
May Day is celebrated in the village with a Marché des Fleurs under the 55 plane trees – my front garden – which shade the colourful displays. Some are very bright . . .
. . . some less so . . .
and some are quite discreet. The poem from Rilke should wrap this post up well. à bientôt.
Rose
so cherished by our
customs
dedicated to our memories
became almost imaginary
for being so linked
to
our
dreams Rainer Maria Rilke
arrangements ou compositions
September 19, 2015
Say it in English or in French – this post is about the placement of items in an attractive manner – some to tantalise, attract in the hope of a purchase or just please in the aesthetic sense – whoever arranged these knows instinctively that the viewer will appreciate the effort. But maybe some compositions have been arrived at haphazardly . . .
. . . it’s a quiet morning in Les Halles in Avignon so an opportunity to take in and admire the arrangements and compositions inside and also outside . . . ..
. . . as it’s Tuesday the unoccupied fish tank becomes an installation in its own right and rarely seen.
Outside in Place Pie, this figure was for investigation . . .
. . . even more eccentric from the front.
Ah, all so eclectic.
at lunchtime
June 6, 2015
France still closes down at lunchtine 12-2pm. Quite civilised and to be respected. Very pleasant sitting in Place de l’Eglise in Fontvieille – a small town that appeals more and more . . .
. . . wandering around the old streets, intrinsic compositions can be seen, admired and recorded.
A garden of pots – well tended plants, all thriving and with somewhere to sit and admire them . . .
. . . and a green roof, which some might say is just ‘les mauvaises herbes’.
Mûrier platane foliage on neatly managed trees shading a small modern square – very inviting – and just close by, in contrast, spreading branches of an ancient plane tree form a ceiling by the quarried stone face of the old town wall.
In the château gardens, now the town park, all ages are catered for. The home of Alphonse Daudet, the writer, now a museum dedicated to him and his work – most notably “Les Lettres de mon Moulin”. Water courses run through the parkland where holm oaks and pines cascade over lauristinius and broom providing a simple vegetation matrix
Following one walking route (there are many others to Les Baux, to San Remy and to Eygalieres) around the top of the town, the landmarks are three windmills named after their owners – Tissot-Avon (2 owners), Ramet and Ribet also called St Pierre and also also called Daudet’s mill with sails completely restored.
rather fell for it and the whole area of Les Alpilles.
J’ai dans mon coeur un oiseau bleu,
Une charmante creature,
Si mignonne que sa ceinture
N’a pas l’epaisseur d’un cheveu.
Il lui faut du sang pour pature.
Bien longtemps, je me fis un jeu
De lui donner sa nourriture:
Les petits oiseaux mangent peu.
Mais, sans en rien laisser paraitre,
Dans mon coeur il a fait, le traitre,
Un trou large comme la main.
Et son bec fin comme une lame,
En continuant son chemin,
M’est entre jusqu’au fond de l’ame!…. Alphonse Daudet L’Oiseau Bleu
terrain 