La histoire française + architecture
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241 Terms
une pendule en cartel lyre bleu de ciel
sky-blue mantle clock in the shape of a lyre; by Pierre Gouthirt, bronzier (1732-1813)
une pendule de cheminée vs. un cartel
mantle clock / wall-mounted clock
« sa seule religion était celle de la Beauté, parce qu’en effect ill l’aima toute sa vie »
“ His only religion was that of Beauty, because in fact he loved it all his life” (Proust on Ruskin, Bible d’Amiens, 56)
“On ne naît pas femme, on le devient.”
This quote by Simone de Beauvoir expresses the idea that gender is a social construct rather than a biological given, emphasizing that the identity of being a woman is shaped by experiences and societal expectations¨ Le Deuxième Sexe, (1949), vol. 2.
la Vierge à l’Enfant
statue in the nave of Amiens cathedral
un écusson
coat of arms
les badauds
curious onlookers or bystanders
trancher la question
to settle the matter definitively
une soubrette
a lively maidservant or chambermaid (often depicted in French lit. and theater)
les branches greffées
branches that have been grafted onto another plant to grow
la madone
a statue of BVM
une bâtisse
a building or structure (architectural term)
John Ruskin « pourra parler des années où le gothique lui apparut. Les événements de sa vie sont intellectuels et les dates importantes sont celles où il pénètre une nouvelle forme d’art… »
JR will be able to speak of the years in which the Gothic appeared to him with the same gravity, the same moved response, the same serenity with which a Christian speaks of the day on which the truth was revealed to him. The events of his life are intellectual, and the important dates are those on which he penetrates a new form of art…” (Bible d’Amiens, 60); in the case of both JR and SM, Beauty functions as a transcendent or quasi-transcendent value that judges and orients the artist’s life and practice. Both are suspicious of art that serves only sensuous gratification or subjective expression. Ruskin (via Proust) wants to fix the eternal reality glimpsed in Beauty into durable form so it can be transmitted.
« le retour ému »
the inward emotional resonance, or affective reverberation, that a revelation produces within a person, the way the event continues to echo and move them from within, long after the initial encounter. Retour ému is the most delicate and characteristically Proustian element in the sentence. It does not mean “return” in the sense of coming back to a place or time: ému is a profound, lasting, and emotionally charged inner response, and compatible with the “sérénité” (serenity). It is the kind of deep, resonant stirring one experiences at a moment of genuine spiritual or aesthetic conversion.
la Beauté de Mallarmé
Mallarmé detaches Beauty from morality and from representational fidelity. His ideal is closer to a pure, self-sufficient linguistic or ideal event, but radicalized into an ascetic, almost inhuman purity. He stages the approach to the ideal through hesitation, chance, white space, and the “coup de dés.” The poem does not so much capture Beauty as make the absence of Beauty and its virtuality palpable.
« le même retour ému, la même sérénité qu'un chrétien parle du jour où la vérité lui fut révélé »
"The same inward emotional resonance, the same serenity with which a Christian speaks of the day the truth was revealed to him " (Bible d’Amiens, 60). JR’s Beauty remains deeply entangled with the moral, the social, and the Christian, hence The Bible of Amiens. Proust is arguing that JR’s discoveries (e.g., Gothic architecture, Titian’s shadows) function for him like religious revelations: they have the same gravity, the same deep inward resonance (“retour ému”), the same calm certainty that a Xn attaches to the day truth was revealed to him. JR’s life is therefore not organized around personal jouissance, but around successive aesthetic “conversions.” The term “retour ému” captures the combination of emotional depth and serene gravity that Proust attributes to Ruskin’s aesthetic vocation.
« L’œuvre seule existe »
Only the work exists: the individual ego bursts apart and is replaced by a shimmering, dispersed multiplicity. The butterflies suggest both fragility and the possibility of flight — a scattering that allows something higher (Beauty, the Idea, the Book) to take flight instead.
« l’absente de tous bouquets »
Beauty is not the expression of the poet’s feelings, personality, or experiences. Beauty is the pure absernt Idea that can only appear when language is purified of ordinary, personal intention. The poet must therefore become a kind of vanishing mediator or transparent medium. The poet’s task is not to speak about Beauty, but to create the conditions in which Beauty can appear on its own terms, through suggestion, silence, white space, and the most rarefied linguistic structures. This is why Mallarmé’s poetry is so elliptical, difficult, and anti-confessional. The more the empirical self is abolished, the more the poem can approach the ideal.
Ruskin versus Mallarmé
Ruskin: The artist must consecrate his life and self to Beauty; the self is subordinated to a higher reality, but it remains a dedicated, moral agent that faithfully records and transmits what it sees. Mallarmé: the self must be abolished and dispersed. Only through this radical depersonalization can Beauty appear in its purity. The poet does not serve Beauty by remaining himself: instead, he serves Beauty by ceasing to be himself in any ordinary sense.
Qu l'artiste, dit-il, ait peint le héros ou son cheval
Whether the artist painted the hero or his horse (Bible d’Amiens, 61)
« de même que l'amour des paysages de Turner correspondait chez Ruskin à cet amour de la nature »
Similarly, John Turner's love of landscapes corresponded in Ruskin to this love of nature (Bible d’Amiens, 64)
Ruskin: « nous avoue que l'église qui lui a donné le plus profonde ivresse du gothique est Saint-Urbain de Troyes »
Ruskin "confesses to us that the church which gave him the deepest exstacy with Gothic architecture was Saint-Urbain in Troyes" (Bible d’Amiens, 65)
un écrin
jewel-case, jewel-box
il compare longuement la Vierge Dorée d'Amiens à
Ruskin compares at length the Golden Virgin (of the south porch) of Amiens to
les écrins merveilleux de sa mémoire
marvelous jewel-cases of his memory (Bible d’Amiens 66)
une planche
a full-page printed illustration in a book (Bible d’Amiens, 71)
les sabords
cannon ports in the hull of a ship, sometimes with hinged lids (BA 73)
à contre-jour, sur le soleil couchant
backlit, against the setting sun (73)
l'épanouissement de la foi
the flourishing of faith (75)
il ne sied pas à
it is not suitable for
les quatre-feuilles
a decorative motif resembling four leaves placed symmetrically (often used in Gothic architecture)
un bellâtre
a man excessively concerned with his appearance
« ces étoiles éteintes »
literary term for lost or faded beauty, often referencing things that were once vibrant or significant but are now gone.
le culte de la Vierge Marie se développe au 15e siècle, particulièrement celui de la Vierge à l’Enfant
the worship of the Virgin Mary
les plus grands maux
the most significant evils/sufferings (in society)
chez les païens comme chez les chrétiens
among pagans as well as among Christians
les forfaits
heinous transgressions
un chapeau seyant, peu seyant
a becoming hat, unbecoming
« ça allait, ça ira »
“Things were OK, things will be OK” (a situation was not great, but it will be manageable, realistic resignation)
les déboires
setbacks, disappointments
Que nous importe ?
What does it matter to us? (expressing indifference)
le trumeau de la façade
the central pillar of the main portal of the west fascade of Gothic building
une campanile
bell towers (typically found in churches and often integrated into the architectural design of buildings in Italy)
entasser les vanités et les forfaits
to accumulate vanities and grave transgressions (often referring to the excessive pride and moral failings of individuals or society)
la coque de ruban
a ribbon that has been folded and pleated into an ornamental shell-like shape (R 141)
une rose soufflée
light pink rose (R 172)
jusque-là délaissées
which had been previously ignored
le recours à une histoire nationale continue
the illustration of a continuous history
pianoforte
original name for piano; Jean-Henri Pape, 1834.
un plafond à caissons
a coffered ceiling
cette salle, répétition de la galerie de l’étage inférieur
this gallery, a copy of the one on the lower level
des carreaux de pavement
small decorative floor tiles for creating geometric or patterned designs.
la garde-robe
the wardrobe, a private space in a royal residence for a queen and ladies-in-waiting
les dalles
large, thick, floor tiles, often made of marble, granite, or limestone, for grand halls and courtyards (dallage); In St Marks Venice, they are large polychrome marble slabs, which can become uneven over the centuries with age.
les Guerres de Religion
the development of humanism in the Renaissance brought with it the birth of the Reformist trend, which called into question the teachings of the Church of Rome. (1562-1599), ending with Edict of Nantes.
le porc-épic
porcupine, emblem of Louis XII
le clavecin
harpsicord (1572)
un pièce d’apparat, dotée d’une cheminée
a State Room, with a fireplace
« On ne naît pas homme, on le devient » et fedère autour de lui des érudites au forment une « République des Lettres ».
Erasmus; “One is not born a man, one becomes a man,” (“Fit homo, non nascitur”), and (he) gathered around him learned men who formed a “Literary Republic,” i.e., education shapes a person (humanism); cf. Simon de Beauvoir, who repurposed this aphorism through existentialism new critical ends. SB radicalised Erasmus, describing how woman is made “the Other” through social, historical and material conditions.
Le groupe de la Pléiade, réunissant sept poètes
The Pleiades, made up of 7 poets, including Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)
à caissons
with recessed geometric panels
le Musée Cognacq-Jay explore le diversité de la féminité dans sa mis en scène au XVIIIe siècle.
the museum explores the diversity of feminity in its performance/staging in the 18th century
une tenture
an ensemble or suite of wall hangings (tapisseries) on the same theme
les grands aménagements de Louis XIV
the major renovations of Louis XIV
la gestion de l’atelier
the management of the studio/workshop
le œuvre est déposée a Chambord pour une durée de deux ans
the painting is on loan to Chambord for a period of two years
le tableau s’apparente à deux autres toiles
the painting is related to 2 other paintings
la Vierge, assise sur un trône coiffée d’une demi-coupole
a throne crowned with a half-dome
reprenant la posture de la Vierge á l’Enfant
reworking the pose of the Virgin and Child
commandé par François 1er en 1532
commissioned by Francois I
l’abdication de Charles X et le départ en exil
abdication of Charles X
les Trois Glorieuse provoke la chute de la régime
27-29 juillet 1830
un chiffonnier
Tallboy, Louis XVI period
secrétaire à cylindre
roll top desk (bureau)
vue prise à vol d’oiseau
bird’s eye view
cette estampe colorée
this coloured print
légèrement désaxées
slightly off-centred
cette représentation donne une vision assez réaliste
this picture gives a relatively realistic perspective
les sièges
chairs
la comédie
theatre production
des terres de Sologne
the Sologne estate
the château a resté imparfait
the chateau remained unfinished
l’aile de la chapelle et l’enceinte
the chapel wing and surrounding wall
la distribution intérieure du château
the interior layout of the château
l’étiquette
ceremonial regimental court life
cette enfilade de pièce
a series of connected rooms aligned in a straight line
aménagé vers 1680
remodelled about 1680
trois cabinets à usage privé
3 rooms for private use
Il ne profite guère de Chambord
He rarely comes to Chambord
Il a commandè ce portrait à Jean Nicret
he commissioned portrait.
le logis
living-quarters
être introduit auprès de lui
to have a (royal) audience with him
les placets
written petitions
un cartel, une pendule en cartel
wall-mounted clock
une bergère
bergère chair
la chambre de parade
the state bedchamber, most important room in the royal apartment
un nouveau parquet
new (wooden) parquet flooring
une féminité rêvée et fantasmé
a dreamlike and fantasized femininity
les boiseries
wooden paneling
le bureau à caissons
coffered desk
