#histoire contemporaine

[vagabondageautourdesoi]

La voix des femmes - Laure Adler

Nouvel essai de Laure Adler La voix des femmes, qui raconte le féminisme d'hier combiné à celui d'aujourd'hui, une brève histoire nécessaire !

Féminisme d’hier combiné à celui d’aujourd’hui Dans La voix des femmes, Laure Adler s’interroge sur ce qu’est qu’être femme aujourd’hui à travers la culture, des rencontres, des voyages, des souvenirs et des récits d’expérience. Elle convoque l’histoire du mouvement pour la mettre en perspective avec le présent et les nouveaux courants. Après avoir affirmé, à travers son propre engagement…

[cheminer-poesie-cressant]

(Une partie de campagne, 1936, Jean Renoir)

petite histoire poétique du cinéma, les réminiscences des images

.

Courir sous les bras des arbres,

s'échapper de l'ombre,

vision fugace de printemps,

un rouge serré à la taille

la liberté bourdonnante plein les yeux.

.

(Dans la portée des ombres, extrait)

© Pierre Cressant

(jeudi 6 octobre 2005)

[thomtmexploration]

Découvrez l'exposition de la villa d'Ernest Perochon 🏠

La vidéo 👇

Les photos 👇

La description 👇

La villa d'Ernest Perochon est un Centre d'Art Contemporain Photographique. Ce centre d'art offre aux visiteurs une opportunité unique de découvrir gratuitement et d'apprécier les œuvres de photographie contemporaine. Il met en valeur le travail d'artistes talentueux et permet au public de se plonger dans l'univers créatif de la photographie d'art.

Localisation: Niort

Période: été 2024.

[espack]

[lesparaversdemillina]

Fantastique histoire d'amour de Sophie Divry

c'est ma première participation à un prix littéraire et je suis ravie de faire partie du jury. Le livre de Sophie Divry m'ont sortie de ma zone de confort avec son mélange de genres captivant.

[firebarzzz]

Prince: L'icône de Minneapolis était une machine à distribuer des albums - (1958-2016) - Musicien/Producteur

Né Prince Rogers Nelson le 7 juin 1958 à Minneapolis, Minnesota - Prince: L'icône de Minneapolis était une machine à distribuer des albums - (1958-2016) - Musicien/Producteur

📍Prince: L’icône de la Musique Né Prince Rogers Nelson le 7 juin 1958 à Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince est devenu l’une des figures les plus emblématiques de la musique contemporaine. Son héritage musical transcende les genres, marquant une empreinte indélébile dans l’histoire de la musique populaire. Issu d’une famille de musiciens, Prince a baigné dans un environnement artistique dès son plus…

[jacqwess]

Home, sweet and sour home

Home... What is home, where is it? How does it feel, smell, taste? Am I home? Or longing for, dreaming of home? All this (and more) is in Imagine Home (Noordbrabants Museum. A dozen or so, mainly young, artists, a lot of talent and emotions. Impressive.

Top English summary : click here Informations pratiques: cliquez ici Ines Kooli : Swing Damocles. Une jeune femme sur une balançoire. En face d’elle, une vidéo. Des images qui évoquent la Méditerranée, bleutées. alternant avec des images de plats, de maisons, e tapis, reconnaissables pour appartenir à une culture, un pays. Une voix de femme les accompagne, un peu comme si elle récitait un…

[claudinedaussyart]

En ces temps de torpeur

https://www.facebook.com/reel/209124948861943?sfnsn=scwspmo

[art-vortex]

(via Minijupeundefined avec l'œuvre « Copie de "Thai Lanna: L'héritage des motifs ancestraux" » de l'artiste Art-Vortex-fr)

[adarkrainbow]

The art of Perrault (1)

I found this fascinating article on an art-and-museum website talking about the few times Charles Perrault's fairytales entered the world of art. It's entirely in French, but for those non-French speakers I thought of sharing some elements and points made by the article.

First and foremost, their talk of the Gustave Doré illustrations, THE most famous illustrations of Perrault's fairytales to this day.

A few contextual reminders. We are in the 19th century, the time of nationalism, where each country focused onto itself, explaining the boom of interest for national folktales and fairytales. The literary Romanticism had also started to enter the world of the art - in the British world it was through the Victorian "fairy painting" wave of the 1850s and 1860s. And in France, right as the business of illustrated books and precious engravings is soaring, we got the Gustave Doré illustrations for Perrault.

The book they come from is the Pierre-Jules Hetzel Contes de Perrault edition of 1861 (illustrations by Gustave Doré, preface by P.-J. Stahl). It contains the eight prose tales of Perrault, from his Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Little Thumbling, Toads and Diamonds, Riquet with the tuft), plus a prose version of Donkey Skin. The book contains 40 illustrations, all based on models and drawings of Doré, though done by several engravers that were selected by both Hetzel and Doré: François Pannemaker, Héliodore and Anthelme Pisan. In 1861 the engravings themselves were shown, on their own, at the art Salon de peinture et sculpture (the huge yearly artistic event of 19th century France) - they were destined for collections, be them the personal collections of Doré and his engravers, or those of wealthy collectors.

The order of the fairytales was changed in this edition, which decided to go: Little Red Riding Hood, Little Thumbling, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Riquet with the tuft, Donkey Skin, Diamonds and Toads, and Bluebeard at the end.

The Bibliothèque Nationale of France and the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg have both preserved precious photographies which were taken (by Nadar and Michelez) of the original wood-drawings Doré made for these illustrations. Doré had them exposed at the Louis Martinet galerie, and these photos are VERY precious because they are the only trace we have of Doré's original plans for these pictures - as well as the only way we can know of what changes and modifications the engravers brought to them.

Doré's illustrations reveal many things. First and foremost, how fairytales clearly were not just for children at the time. While he tries to stay true to the letter of Perrault's stories, Doré still uses a Romantisme noir style (dark Romanticism), offering dramatic, phantasmagorical, almost oppressive visions. The complex engravings play on the lights and the shadows, on the size of the characters and those of the landscape ; they also make heavy use of the monstrous and the uncanny. In the Little Thumbling illustrations, there is an effort to convey the loneliness and anguish of the characters - the forest is endless, dark and scary, swallowing the children... The compositions are however still very detailed, with a lot of accumulations, because they are to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. For example, the picture of Bluebeard's wife receiving the keys shows a lot of precious cloth and a varied jewelry - and this overbearing of the decorum, mixed with the unusual appearance of Bluebeard (especially his gaze) all conveys the tragedy that is unfolding here.

By opposition to these scenes of cruelty and tragedy, Doré makes several more "peaceful" illustrations. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are still filled with mystery and disturbingness, but they are rather dominated by the sweetness of the two young women. Doré doesn't limit himself to strong and isolated characters, on the contrary he creates an entire "decorative universe" just to have his characters fit into a narrative. The overabundance of tiny details causes an almost unconscious reverie, making the audience almost "re-discover" Perrault texts anew.

The illustrations of Doré caused the massive success of the Hetzel edition, and very quickly these pictures became part of popular culture, influencing the way Perrault's fairytales were perceived up to this day.

[romain-leclaire]

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo - Une adaptation magistrale qui réinvente un classique

La nouvelle adaptation du chef-d'œuvre d'Alexandre Dumas vient de sortir en VOD, et quel spectacle ! Certes, nous avons déjà vu de nombreuses versions de cette histoire immortelle de vengeance et de duplicité, mais cette nouvelle interprétation, signée par le duo Matthieu Delaporte et Alexandre de la Patellière (déjà aux commandes du récent "Les Trois Mousquetaires"), apporte un souffle nouveau à ce récit complexe.

Le film suit fidèlement l'histoire que nous connaissons tous, Edmond Dantès, brillamment incarné par Pierre Niney, est un jeune marin prometteur dont la vie bascule suite à une machination orchestrée par trois hommes qu'il croyait être ses amis. Fernand de Marcef (Bastien Bouillon), Danglars (Patrick Mille) et le magistrat Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) conspirent par jalousie pour l'envoyer croupir dans les geôles du Château d'If, alors même qu'il s'apprêtait à épouser sa bien-aimée Mercedes (Anaïs Demoustier). C'est dans sa cellule que Dantès rencontre l'Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), qui devient son mentor et lui révèle l'existence d'un trésor. Après quatorze années de captivité et une évasion spectaculaire, Notre héro renaît sous l'identité du mystérieux Comte de Monte-Cristo, prêt à orchestrer sa vengeance dans les salons dorés du Paris mondain.

Ce qui distingue cette adaptation, c'est sa capacité à condenser les 1400 pages du roman en presque trois heures de film sans jamais nous perdre ni sacrifier la profondeur du récit. Les réalisateurs ont réussi l'exploit de moderniser l'intrigue tout en restant fidèles à l'esprit de Dumas. Pierre Niney livre une performance remarquable dans ce rôle complexe, évoluant du jeune marin innocent au vengeur sophistiqué avec une subtilité impressionnante. Le casting féminin n'est pas en reste, avec une Anaïs Demoustier touchante en Mercedes et une Anamaria Vartolomei fascinante dans le rôle d'Haydée, l'esclave affranchie prisonnière de l'emprise psychologique du Comte.

Techniquement, le film est une réussite totale. Avec un budget relativement modeste de 42,9 millions d'euros, l'équipe a créé un spectacle visuel époustouflant. La photographie de Nicolas Bolduc capture magnifiquement les décors somptueux de Stéphane Taillasson, tandis que la partition de Jérôme Rebotier souligne parfaitement les moments dramatiques sans jamais tomber dans l'excès. Ce qui frappe particulièrement, c'est l'intelligence avec laquelle le film traite les thèmes intemporels du roman, la vengeance, la rédemption, la justice et le prix du pardon. Les réalisateurs ont su créer un équilibre parfait entre spectacle et profondeur narrative, action et émotion, fidélité à l'œuvre originale et sensibilité contemporaine.

Cette nouvelle version du "Comte de Monte-Cristo" prouve qu'il est possible de réaliser un film d'époque ambitieux qui parle au public moderne. C'est le type de production que Hollywood devrait prendre en exemple, un divertissement intelligent qui ne sacrifie ni le spectacle ni la substance. En définitive, cette adaptation est une belle surprise. Elle réussit le tour de force de se démarquer parmi les nombreuses versions existantes en offrant une relecture à la fois respectueuse et innovante du chef-d'œuvre de Dumas. Un film qui devrait satisfaire aussi bien les puristes que les nouveaux spectateurs découvrant cette histoire légendaire.

[vagabondageautourdesoi]

Ailleurs, chez moi - D. Kennedy

Récit autobiographique et essai de Douglas Kennedy dans Ailleurs, chez moi, un voyage autobiographique à la recherche de ce que c'est qu'être Américain.

Un voyage autobiographique à la recherche de ce que c’est qu’être Américain À partir de sa propre histoire, Douglas Kennedy essaye de répondre à cette question en apparence simple : Qu’est-ce qu’être américain ? Depuis, plusieurs romans, l’écrivain décrit des instants historiques de la vie américaine qui dénonce les travers d’une société malade de ses rêves, devenus fantômes. Dans son dernier,…

[cheminer-poesie-cressant]

.

La ligne de mouettes à la proue de l'île,

participait au voyage intérieur,

sur les lieux les plus vastes de la ville

indiquait un désir du large,

tels les hommes pointillés au bord des rivages.

.

(Dans la portée des ombres, extrait)

© Pierre Cressant

(mardi 20 septembre 2005)

[espack]

[aurevoirmonty]

«Fait du prince»: Macron veut absolument imposer ses vitraux contemporains dans la cathédrale Notre-Dame

Et ce contre l'avis - unanime - des 40 experts de la Commission nationale du patrimoine, qui rappellent que les vitraux de Viollet-le-Duc, des œuvres protégées, n’ont subi aucun dommage.

Qu'importe, le ministère de la Culture a annoncé le 4 septembre que le projet de vitraux contemporains était toujours en cours, vigoureusement soutenu par Emmanuel Macron.

Après avoir voulu construire (https://t.me/kompromatmedia/2741) «un sexe érigé avec des boules en or» (dixit Bachelot) en lieu et place de la flèche, le chef d'Etat a visiblement une idée bien précise de ce qu'il veut faire du lieu saint.

Histoire, probablement, de le rendre raccord avec la déco de l’Elysée (https://t.me/kompromatmedia/1872).

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Apologies if I’ve asked something similar to this before , but what do primary sources tell us on Danton’s actual role in the indulgent campaign, and specifically Vieux Cordelier? Because we hear a lot about Danton persuading Camille to make this move, but frankly, I think the direct attack on Robespierre and refusal to back down fits more with Camille’s reckless impulsivity than Danton’s more comprising and savvy (and arguably self-interested) political style. Is the idea he was behind it actually supported by evidence outside the notorious trial notes , or was that something invented (or falsely believed) by Robespierre in an attempt to portray his friend as “misled” rather than counter-revolutionary, and Danton as power hungry ?

I still have your ask from like half a year ago and am working on it, there’s just so much interesting stuff to look over (and I would be lying if I didn’t say I’ve taken massive breaks now and then :\ ). But so far, I have yet to find any hard evidence of Danton’s involvement in the Vieux Cordelier.

We have several contemporaries designating Danton as some kind of leader of a moderate faction. His friend Dominique-Joseph Garat did for example in his Memoirs of the revolution; or, an apology for my conduct, in the public employments which I have held (1795) claim that Danton had been deeply moved by the fate of the 22 girondins, to the extent it motivated him to quit politics for a month and retire to Arcis-sur-Aube. When Danton returned to Paris in November 1793, Garat argues it was with a ”conspiracy” in mind, a conspiracy which had as it goal to ”restore for the benefit of all the reign of justice and of the laws, and to extend clemency to his enemies,” and to which Desmoulins belonged:

At Arcis-sur-Aube, the aspects of nature, while it calmed the anxieties of his breath, inspired him with generous and magnanimous resolutions. In the silence of the country and of retreat, he conceived the design of a new and benevolent conspiracy. All his friends entered into it. […] The measures by which Danton proposed to ally his conspiracy into execution, were, to prepare the minds of men for such a change, by means of such papers as those of Camille Desmoulins.

In Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution Française (1797), Desmoulins’ fellow journalist Louis Marie Prudhomme also wrote the following:

Piqued by this despotic pride, which openly reduced them to the role of subordinates, Danton, Lacroix, Camille-Desmoulins, Fabre-d'Églantine, put themselves at the head of a secret party against the emerging authority of the Committee which was their work. It was to overthrow it in public opinion that they undermined its fundamental basis, terror. Camille was charged with this moral attack, and his numbers of Le Vieux Cordelier seemed for a moment to ensure the triumph of the system of clemency.

Finally, Danton’s friend Edme-Bonaventure Courtois wrote in Notes et souvenirs de Courtois de l’Aube, député à la Convention nationale (cited in La Révolution française: revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (1887), that ”it was in these painful moments that [Desmoulins] put to paper (in his Vieux Cordelier) the reflections that his indignation could no longer contain, and whose acrimony Danton, through his advice, softened in many places.”

But the very first contemporary to make Danton into the leader of an ”indulgent faction” who had proofread the Vieux Cordelier would indeed appear to be Robespierre, who in his notes against the dantonists (dated to around March 1794) has written the following:

Desmoulins; even the title of this pamphlet (the Vieux Cordelier) was destined to conciliate public opinion with the leaders of this coterie who hid their projects under the name of Vieux Cordeliers, of veterans of the Revolution. Danton, in capacity of president of this Vieux Cordelier, corrected the prints of his numbers; he made changes there, by his own admission. One recognizes his influence and his hand in the writings of Philippeaux, and even in the ones of Bourdon.

This was passed on in the report based on the notes written by Saint-Just:

…What shall I say about the confession made by Danton, that he had edited the latest writings of Desmoulins and Philippeaux?

Like you say, it is however hard to say if these charges are to be treated seriously or just as a cheap way to make Danton into the ”spider in the web” (the truth evidently not being that important when it came to French revolutionaries cutting each other’s heads off). I would say Robespierre’s claim is somewhat undermined by the fact he accuses Danton of editing not just Desmoulins’ writings, but those of Philippeaux and Bourdon as well, because while he in the first case did have an opportunity to know more about the work, having himself been involved in its publication by proofreading one or two numbers (this is for example the way the movie La Terreur et la Vertu has him find out it’s Danton who has asked Camille to pick up his pen again), we don’t have anything suggesting that was the case for the latter two. If Robespierre had hard evidence of Danton’s influence over these three writings, it also seems a bit strange he doesn’t elaborate on it a bit more… Furthermore, since Saint-Just’s report was read aloud at the Convention and published in different journals we also can’t entirely rule out the possibility the people who attested to Danton as leader of a faction after the fact to some extent built their testimonies on said report, which of course would make them much weaker.

Of course, all of the things above are still just claims made by contemporaries. Looking over the things Danton and Camille are themselves confirmed to have said and done during Vieux Cordelier’s publication, it’s more foggy. For the former, we more or less only have interventions made by him at the Jacobins and Convention to go on, considering the lack of private papers left behind by him. I have not gone through all of these yet, but some sort of big revelation of Danton’s role in the ”indulgent campaign” is not something I’ve found so far. That there doesn’t exist any place where Danton openly states ”it was I who told Camille to start writing the Vieux Cordelier and I’m the puppet master behind it” is of course not exactly strange, but not very helpful for our question either… I also can’t find the question of who was really responsible for the Vieux Cordelier’s publication posed to Danton or any of the other ”indulgents” anywhere during their trial, so neither that’s of much use. More damning evidence, such as a draft of a number of the journal with Danton’s handwriting/notes on it, I have not heard anything about.

As for Camille, nowhere in the notes he wrote on Saint-Just’s report does he confirm, reject or even bring up the accusation there printed that Danton was the one truly in charge of the Vieux Cordelier, something which I suppose could be read as implying the charge was true, or that he simply ignored it. Similarily, the fact that Robespierre on December 14 is recorded to have said ”[Camille’s] energetic and easy pen can still serve [the revolution] usefully, but, more circumspect in the choice of his friends, he must break all pacts with impiety, that is to say, with the aristocracy,” and that Camille in his very last letter to his wife claims that ”I die as a victim of these jokes [in the Vieux Cordelier] and my friendship to Danton. I’m glad my assassins let me die with him and Philippeaux.” could be interpreted as evidence Danton had a considerate influence over Camille’s actions, but are still too vague to really say anything more concreate. It can be observed that in the first number of Vieux Cordelier, released December 5 1793, Desmoulins designates the session at the Jacobins just two days earlier, during which Robespierre defended Danton after he had been accused of ”moderatism” by Coupé d’Oise, as the event that caused him to return to the journalistic pen: 

Victory is with us because, amid the ruins of so many colossal civic reputations, Robespierre’s in unassailed; because he lent a hand to his competitor in patriotism, our perpetual President of the “Old Cordeliers” […] I learned some things yesterday. I saw how many enemies we have. Their multitude tears me from the Hotel des Invalides and returns me to combat. I must write.

This at least clearly and quickly cements that the journal is sympathetic towards Danton. At the same time, it also implies the founding of the journal was spontanous and not part of some great scheme (though again, if it was part of a scheme, Camille would of course not say that outloud, so…)

When it comes to what historians/biographers have written, Danton (1914) by Louis Madelin claims that ”Danton saw in [Hébert] the man to be killed before everyone else. Against this wretch, he would throw Camille: “Take your pen,” he told him as soon as he returned [from Arcis-sur-Aube] “and ask for mercy!” Desmoulins, to obey him, founded the Vieux Cordelier and took Hébert by the throat.” while Jules Claretie in Camille Desmoulins and his wife; passages from the history of the Dantonists founded upon new and hitherto unpublished documents (1876) argues Camille wrote under the dictation of both Robespierre and Danton. None of them do however cite a real source for this… In the more recent Danton (1978), Norman Hampson writes that ”the question of how far Danton approved of this [”indulgent”] campaign, or even directed it from behind the scenes, merits careful examination,” and that, at least by late December 1793, ”If indulgence was the programme of a dantonist faction, Robespierre looked a better dantonist than [Danton] was,” while Hervé Leuwers in the even more recent Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république (2018) firmly declares that ”[Camille’s] journal is personal, he is writing on the command of neither Danton nor Robespierre, much less under their dictation, as is too often affirmed.”

I definitely don’t think Robespierre would be incapable of wanting to portray someone as just ”misled” rather than ”counter-revolutionary” if said someone was his personal friend (though why that even matters if you’re just gonna kill them anyway can be a question for another day). After all, this same phenomenon of wanting to downplay the actions (alternatively claim they are the effect of ”bad influence”) of someone liked or admired can be observed both in the attitude of Brissot towards Robespierre, Charlotte Robespierre towards her brother and the Desmoulins couple towards Robespierre, so why not the opposite way around?

Finally, out of curiosity, what ”direct attack” on Robespierre is it you’re referring to? Because Camille never attacked Robespierre personally in the Vieux Cordelier as far as I’m aware, there only exists one place in the draft of the seventh and final number where he reproaches Robespierre for going against his former anti-war campaign, that would appear to ultimately have been cut and nevertheless was never released since both Camille and his printer were arrested before it could happen. Are you talking about Camille’s legendary ”to burn is not to answer” rebuttal?