Themes ranged from simple designs, many from the Moorish influent of calligraphy and geometric drawings. Depending on the locations, public tiles tended to be historical, churches tended to be religious. Here we have Christ giving the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter. The tile is credited to Willem van der Kloet, in 1707, originally in Amsterdam.
Read MoreThe Sagrada Família. We stepped inside and there are the pillars, shaped like tree trucks reaching into heaven. And the light. It is all about the light flowing in through the stained glass. It is an emotional/spiritual experience, and unforgettable.
Read MoreThe Santa Barbara Mission was an excellent setting for the exhibit. It is set up in two rooms, each room split into two halls. There’s plenty of room to walk around the digital reproductions. Along with the app recording, each picture had a printed sign of the recording.
Read MoreWalking through the entrance into the inner stone courtyard you pause and take a deep breath. The plain outside compared to the colored tiles in the courtyard is startling. Called the Courtyard of Honor (honor means power), the courtyard reveals a glazed tile roof with gothic arched gables. The tiles are triple fired, first to harden, next to burn in the color and finally to glaze. They last an estimated 300 years. The complex represents an architectural style called Burgundian and supports more weather vanes than any other building in France.
Read MoreReims cathedral entrance, West Façade, has three portals entering into the Nave and side aisles. The statues adorning the façade depict royalty from both the Old and New Testaments tied to the France line of kings. From the center portal going up is the crowning of the Virgin Mary, next is the rose window and very near the top are statues of the kings of France, Clovis in the center, on his left his wife Coltilde, and on his right Saint Remigius. The South Portal has sculptures of the prophets Simon, John the Baptist and Isaiah with scenes from the Last Judgement and Apocalypses of John. The Central Portal shows the crowning of the Virgin Mary (to whom the cathedral is dedicated) with Jesus placing the crown symbolizing Christ’s marriage to the church. The north portal shows us Christ’s Crucifixion, his Resurrection, and Ascension, in addition to the smiling archangel Gabriel standing next to the Virgin Mary.
Read MoreIt rained shortly before we arrived at the battle sight. Water filled the
hollows caused by the bombardment of the shells which are still visible after over 100 years. The nearly eight square miles of battle field are pockmarked. Because it was an aerial conflict from the start the shelling from both side took place day and night with hundreds of thousands of rounds expended on both sides. Most of the casualties came from shrapnel wounds. There were no bunkers and troops moved from artillery pocket to artillery pocket. Because of the movement of troops and the constant bombardment of artillery from both the German and French, a significant number of casualties could have been caused by friendly fire.
Read MoreSaint Sebastian is on the left wing of the first altarpiece. Living in the mid third century he was killed during Diocletian’s persecution of the Christians. According to legend he was tied to a tree, or post, and shot with arrows which did not kill him. He was saved by Saint Irene of Rome. He was known for answering healing prayers from those with the plague. The monastery was named after Saint Anthony who is depicted in the right wing of the altarpiece. He is known as a healer specifically for the people inflicted with Saint Anthony’s Fire. He was also plagued by demons, notice the demon in window above his head.
Read MoreHanalei, Kauai, Hawaii. Sitting on the north shore of the island of Kauai Hanalei has a long history reaching back into the original settling of the Hawaiian Islands between 124 and 1120 CE. Once known as the laid-back center for the hippy/surfer counter culture, Hanalei has turned into one of the primary destinations of the Hawaiian Islands.
Read MoreOur friend Dave descending one of the walkway stairs between the lakes. We did not know that that the Plitvice Lakes area is technically a rain forest area. Normally these stairs are about three to four feet above the water level.
Read MoreThe tree is almost to big to grasp. It is the largest in Hawaii. Nearly 150 years old, the tree covers about one third of an acre and is about one fourth of a mile in circumference and stands 60 feet tall. Originally from India, the tree is a member of the fig family producing a small rose red fruit.
Read MoreThe Industrial Revolution started in France in the early 1800s. The need for large stone buildings to act as warehouses and factories created a need to find and quarry stone.
: Quarried stone waiting for shipment to building sites. https://www.carrieres-lumieres.com/en/bit-of-history
The result was a demand for the slightly calcareous limestone found in the Provence region of France. The quarry, Les Grands Fonds, just outside of the hill village of Les Baux was a primary source of the fine grained, easily worked slightly off white or blonde stone.
Bauxite, a red mineral used to make aluminum was discovered in the quarry in 1821, and named after the nearby town of Les Baux-de-Provence.
With the use of concrete and steel, the demand for stone block declined and the quarry was closed in 1935.
Over the next several decades, the quarry was used as the location for various staging and films.
In 2012 the city of Les Baux turned over the operation of the quarry to Culturespaces. From there Carrières de Lumières came into existence with the first “Immersive” experience of music and art released in March 2012, “Gauguin, Van Gogh: Painters in Color,” directed by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto and Massimiliano Siccardi.
In the spring of 2019, we took a guided tour from Chartres to Nice in France. Along the way we stopped at the Les Grands Fonds limestone quarry near Les Baux-de-Provence about 7 hours (700km or 430 miles) south of Paris in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region.
We started with a quick tour through a section of the Les Grands Fonds limestone quarry. It was impressive, but the abandoned quarry was mostly overgrown with a few rocks sticking out of the brush. The scars from the removal of limestone on the quarry walls were very impressive.
It was a feat of exceptional driving, turning the bus around in the cramped single lane road and up out of the valley to an entrance alongside a parking area. The guide would not tell us where were going just that we would be impressed.
We were taken through a very non-descript door with no signage. Then we walked down a short hallway and through another door into the Carrières de Lumières.
Caption: A portion of the quarry had ben repurposed for digital light shows, Carrières de Lumières (Careers of Lights) and was showing of a Van Gogh exhibition. .
The video: Van Gogh exhibit at Carrières de Lumières
The show is broken into ten segments.
First and Second are the “Prologue” and “The Provencal Light” focusing on the Van Gogh’s dynamic palette and celebrating Van Gogh’s time in Provence where he was overcome with the vibrant quality of the sun light compared to the duller sunlight of his home in the Netherlands. The displays are accompanied by the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully : Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme vLWV 43: Ouverture (1670) Luca Longobardi: White Room, and in “The Provencal Light we hear Janis Joplin: Kozmic Blues
Third is “The Early Works” reflecting back to the Netherlands and an earthy approach Van Gogh took with darker muted colors and humble peasant focused paintings. Somber in tone and accompanied by Sofia Gubaidulina: String Quartet No. 4 Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt Op: 23, NO 18. Solveigs sang (Solveig ́s Song)
Forth is “La Nature” a series of seven still lifes Van Gogh painted in 1888 while living in Provence. Brighter and lighter in style, the segment is accompanied by Bedřich Smetana: Smetana: Má Vlast - 2. Vltava
Section Five explores Van Gogh’s Paris period. In Paris, Van Gogh met other artists from the Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists schools. Van Gogh’s palette lightened and he got a taste of painting urban life although he still preferred the areas outside of the city such as Montmartre before the city invaded. The paintings flow across the walls to the music of Giacomo Puccini: Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro.
Section 6 is “Arles.” In Provence Van Gogh discovered the unique texture of the southern France sunlight. Painting like the “Café Terrace at Night,” the “Yellow House” and the “Bedroom” march across the quarry walls to music by Miles Davis: Ascenseur pour l’échafaudMoses Sumney: Doomed. (There is a Van Gogh tour in Arles where you are able to visit and see the sights Van Gogh painted in the city.)
Section Seven and Eight give us “Olive Trees and Cypresses” and “Saint-Remy-de-Provence.” Paintings Van Gogh produced while a patient at Saint-Remy-de-Provence asylum in 1889, include wheat fields rippling in the sun, clouds flowing across the sky, trees bending to the music Van Gogh heard. During this period Van Gogh created a new way to observe the magnificence and chaos of nature captured in his landscapes, such as “Starry Night.” We also see another side of Van Gogh as he looks inward and paints what he sees in a series of self-portraits. In Section seven during “Olive Trees and Cypresses” paintings working their way across the walls to the music of Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, V 315 (Summer): III. Presto Mozart Recomposed de Luca Longobardi. In “Saint- Remy-de-Provence” we hear Nina Simone: “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”
Wheat Field with Crows 1890
Sections Nine and Ten takes to “The Plaine D’Auvers” and the closing “Epilogue.” Section Nine plunges us into Van Gogh’s landscapes including wind and poring rain. “Wheat Field with Crows” takes on a surreal journey through a windblown golden field of grain under a threatening chaotic sky to the strains of Luca Longobardi: Elegie I. The “Epilogue,” closes with another look at Van Gogh’s portraits, the reminder of the genius and eternal timelessness of emotional and dynamic arts, and the music of Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B Flat Major, Op. 83 Luca Longobardi: Elegie I (reprise).
Each year since the quarry was reopened under the operating oversight of Culturespaces it has presented a surround sound and movement art show.
Carrières de Lumières has been closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic in France, but is expected to re-open in December 2020 with two exhibits:
· Dalí, The Endless Enigma
· Gaudí, The Architect of the Imaginary
Previous events were:
2013: Monet, Renoir… Chagall. Journeys around the Mediterranean
2014: Klimt and Vienna
2015: Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci, Raphael: The Giants of the Renaissance
2016: Chagall, Midsummer Night's Dreams
2017: The Fantastic and Wonderful World of Bosch, Brueghel, Arcimboldo
2018: Picasso and the Spanish Masters
2019: Van Gogh, Starry Night
Thank you for reading the blog and I hope you enjoyed the film. Please leave a comment.
The dining at Ellis Island. Most people were processed through in a couple of hours. There was food available, free to those immigrating. If you had a serious complicating illness such as tuberculosis you could be sent back, but there was also free medical services in the Ellis Island hospital for those with minor complications. If you were not contract labor, had friends or family in the states, and were willing to work, you met the basic requirements. There were no papers or other documentation and if you could afford First and Second Class passenger were not even taken to Ellis Island, just sent into New York.
Read MoreThe best way to enjoy the experience is to be at the first showing. The gates opened about 15 minutes before dark. The view of the field in the daylight enables you to see the sunset and watch as the fiber-optic bulbs on top of their stalks come to life. Here the oak trees around and within the field are still visible in the fading evening
Read MorePlecnik House. This is a bench Plecnik designed for guests. He had lots of visitors. Most of them never made it into the house but met with Plecnik in this room. Just as the room had an open roof (allowing rain, wind, snow to enter) this bench sits under the opening in the roof and is purposely built so that the seat leans outward and the person sitting in it slides forward forcing the guest to keep sliding back into the seat. Guests would always end up leaving.
Read MoreEverywhere we went in Dublin we saw references to these 7 men: Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett.
They were the signers of the Proclamation of the Republic. The Proclamation is the Irish version of our Declaration of Independence. It brought to a head the problems the common people had experienced under nearly a 1000 years of foreign occupation. The photograph was taken in the Dublin Castle.
Read MoreI’m finding Scotland, this curious mixture of wild untamed wilderness sitting in the midst of 10000 years of occupation and 2000 years of recorded history. As we approached Urquhart Castle abandoned, for the last 400 years, we passed over the deepest part of the loch, over 700 feet.
Read MoreThe Royal Mile is dense. The buildings stacked side by side are as high as three or four stories facing the Royal Mile. The builders used the Royal Mile Street as their baseline and built down the hillside. We stepped through a narrow alley on the Royal Mile called a close and within 20 yards we had entered a small courtyard and could see the backs of the buildings facing the street. The backs of the buildings were another story taller. The other tenements surrounding the court yard could be as high as ten stories.
Read MoreThe commanding officer on the Britannia was always a flag officer, generally a Rear Admiral. He sailed Britannia with a crew of 20 officers and 200 sailors. The commander has his own mess, occasionally shared with senior officers or members of the royal family. To be invited to the commander’s dinning table to share a meal was a huge honor. The rest of the crew, in descending rank had their own private dining and relaxation sections, although the ranks below petty officers could only draw beer in their off hours while the higher ranks enjoyed a dram of hard liquor. The daily rum ration for all sailors was stopped in 1970 over concerns of drinking and operating machinery. http://www.royalyatchbritannia.co.uk/eclusive-use/private-dinning/the-officers-wardroom-dinners
Read MoreNot every country claims two flags. The satire against a clear blue sky is the official flag of Scotland. The Lion Rampant is the Royal Standard of the King or Queen of the Scots. The raging lion is depicted on the Scottish royal coat of arms and is part of the Great Seal of Scotland. The Lion Rampant dates back to King Richard I of England in the 12th century and shows a lion, the king of beasts, poised and ready for battle with legs and claws extended, ready for battle. https://www.historic-uk.com/assets/Images/ScottishRoyalStandardLionRampant.jpg?1390900212
Read MoreThere are two things that should be on a Yellowstone picture bucket list. The first is Old Faithful. The geyser is not one of the more spectacular in the park, but it is reliable, erupting between 21 and 23 times per day. The data says the intervals between eruptions are 35 to 120 minutes, but the announcement in the Visitor Center said 1:18 pm plus or minus 10 minutes, and it started reliably at 1:22 pm.
Read MoreEvelyn, No matter how many exhibits you have seen, even Christo carpeting the coast a few years ago (actually the late 60s), this is just so mind bending because you can stand in the middle and be a part of it. Watch the sun go down and as the darkness settles the lights come alive around you. Such a thing. Hope all is going well with you and the family. Happy 2020, the year of perfect vision.
Exploring the ways we maintain balance in our lives while all around us is in chaos
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