I like to kid myself that in visiting France and spending lots of time in museums I’m improving my French.
So today I learnt that “bonnets d’affranchises” are what is known in English as the “cap of liberty”, given to freed Roman slaves as a symbol of their new status, and more widely used as a symbol of liberty.
OK, so it might not come up while buying a train ticket, but you never know when it might come in handy…
Okay, you might say this is a bit of a specialist subject, and you might be right, but who could resist this hare?
Unfortunately there’s only one room with the original 14th-century tiles surviving in situ, and you’re not allowed into that!, but there is a nice collection of original ones from around the palace in the consistory hall. As a visitor you’re directed to the surviving frescos, and there’s no doubt they are very fine, particularly those attributed to Matteo Giovanetti in Saint John’s chapel off the consistory.
But somehow, I find more moving, more evocative, these products of certainly humble workmen, working fast, but showing real artistic skill. And the colours are marvelous – a real sign of the art of the workman who blended them without the aid of modern chemistry.
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I started out my tour of Avignon at the logical chronological point, the archaeological annexe of the Musee Calvet, the grand collection officially founded in 1811 but owing quite a bit to an early 18th-century “cabinetâ€.
It is housed in a surprisingly attractive baroque church (no, I’m not generally a fan of the Baroque, but here at least the decoration overload is contained to a great cornice and the nave and chapels are attractively plain, a good setting for the collection). It did well to survive being a WWI storeroom, and then its use for a beekeeping trade fair (which must have been about the 20s. (It was dedicated for museum use in 1933.)
There’s a small ancient Egyptian collection, of no particular local relevance, but it then moves into Greek vases and Etruscan funerary sculptures reflecting early influences here, before moving into the Roman world.
What’s striking about that last collection is how you have to read the labels to tell the origins of the piece – they might be from Rome itself, from the Balkans, from the east, but generally you can’t tell which – a reminder of how monocultural the Roman world was, in many respects. This is an unknown woman from the 3rd century AD, of Avignon – but really she could be of anywhere.
Over on Comment is Free I’ve a piece recording thoughts on the train from Kings Cross to Inverness – it really does feel like you go through three “countries” – the South-East, the North-East and then Scotland (which of course might soon be an entirely independent country). It left me musing about the nature of citizenship. (And got some remarkably civilised, intelligent conversation.)
Thanks to an excellent new project at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, they are making more of their articles available through a monthly online magazine. This month the focus is on Hogarth and his sitters and circle (linking with the just-opening Tate exhibition that I hope to get to see soonish).
Somehow you don’t think of Hogarth as a painter of women – big bluff men who’ve imbibed just a little too much Madeira seem to fit more, but there are a couple of women featured, one of them being Eva Maria Garrick, who was, it seems, another of those power behind the throne women, after having a successful independent career of her own as a dancer.
The marriage settlement, when it was reached, was a virtual guarantee of prosperity … Not only did she receive £10,000 from Garrick, together with £70 per year, but also the annual interest on Lady Burlington’s estates in Lincolnshire. There followed thirty years of contented marriage and forty-three of dignified widowhood. Eva Maria was Garrick’s constant companion at home and abroad, his supporter and adviser in theatrical affairs, a gracious hostess on social occasions, and a welcome guest in the grand houses the couple visited. Garrick’s social aggrandizement is inconceivable without her. Her taste and intelligence are discernible in the books and paintings they bought, in the way they furnished their houses, and between the lines of Garrick’s voluminous correspondence.
(They don’t say if these are going to stay on open access permanently, so it might be a good idea to nab them now if you don’t have access – although of course if you are in England and Wales you can get that through your local library.)
1. Food, glorious food
Stopping between trains at the Gare de Lyon, I nip out of the station to the nearest Chinese restaurant and have a delightful scallops fried with baby corn, spring onions and lemon grass – suddenly the whole point of Cantonese cuisine – usually in Anglo countries a stodgy, sweet mess – becomes clear.
Then on to Avignon, my “home†for the next week – I’m calling this my “Christmas holidayâ€, since I didn’t get one then, and I figured it might be good to get here before the tourist hordes in spring. Dinner on the Grand Square – a vegetable soup served with grated cheese that melts beautifully in it, a ham steak covered with a parsley and honey glaze, perfect pomme frites, and a yoghurt with delightfully tart fruit compote. Nothing flash, but all perfectly thought out and prepared (even if the waiter was surly since I insisted on eating outside, making him walk a bit further – no tip for him then.)
2. Public architecture that works
The grand new TGV station at Avignon is all straight flat planes of glass and concrete – built underneath the raised tracks but surprisingly airy and light. Do this in Britain and by now this would be a smelly, dirty, graffitied home to the homeless and worrying local youths – here it is bustling but friendly, with half a dozen shops seemingly doing a roaring trade.
In days ahead, I’ll probably be adding to this list…
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