Tag: French
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Rose Valland – Art Spy Extraordinaire
Rose Valland was a French museum administrator who worked as a spy and saved countless works of art during World War Two.
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Writing Prompt #17: Basilique Royale de Saint-Denis
Today’s prompt didn’t particularly interest me or feel like a good fit for this blog, but the additional challenge was to write in a style different from my usual one, which I liked a lot. I like my writing to flow and include lots of description; I never skimp on the words. Therefore, I decided…
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Writing Prompt #9: What Manet’s Girls Saw
For today’s prompt about writing from a different point of view, I decided to describe a work of art from the perspective of a figure depicted in the work. I have chosen Edouard Manet’s Railroad (Gare St-Lazare) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., a painting noted for its opaque psychology, unclear narrative, and…
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Writing Prompt #3 – thoughts on art
Today’s prompt told me to write stream of conscious for at least 15 minutes in order to develop a habit of writing every day. The topic I was given was to write about three songs that affect me and how they make me feel. I did the assignment and was pleased with what I wrote,…
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Reims Cathedral, France
This gargoyle is so strange! From the differences in the stone, I assume that the creepy head is a later alteration or restoration, but I’m still not sure what the figure is supposed to represent. The words “crazed donkey” come to mind, however.
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Notre Dame de Paris
This 19th-century grotesque comes from the great Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.
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Fantastic Beasts (Oh Look, I Found One)
Harry Potter fans (such as myself) will certainly enjoy this basilisk grotesque carved into the façade of Amiens Cathedral in France. It is interesting that the basilisk (or cockatrice) of medieval legend looks almost nothing like the one described in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but its other characteristics and the deadly effects…
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Dancers and Skaters by Renoir
A selection of beautiful paintings by Pierre Auguste Renoir – all depicting my two favorite things, ice skating and dancing.
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La Gargouille, the evil dragon gargoyle of Rouen
One highly fanciful legend exists about the origin of the first gargoyle. It concerns a dragon who terrorized the town of Rouen, in France.
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The First Bit of My Gargoyle Research
A few fun facts I learned while reading about gargoyles and grotesques.
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Demons in Pen and Ink
Cover image: Jean Pucelle, The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, ca. 1324–28. Folios 154v-155r, The Miracle of the Breviary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, New York. In one of my last posts, I promised that I would talk about non-architectural grotesques. So meet the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, a fourteenth-century illustrated French prayer book…
