Category: Arts

Girl’s Paris note gets reply from Louvre

An eight-year-old girl who sent a letter addressed simply to “somewhere in Paris, any house” has received a reply from the Louvre Museum.

Iris Corbett, from West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, wrote the note as she wanted to find out about the French capital.
She asked about about food, the Eiffel Tower and what the city was like after France’s Euro 2016 final loss.

The Louvre responded with answers to all her questions.
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The letter comes in a week when a similarly vaguely-addressed Christmas card found its way to the intended recipient in Suffolk.
Iris got the idea for her letter having seen her brother let go of a balloon and thinking it might end up in China.
Iris’s mother, Helena Tyce, said she was really pleased her daughter’s note received a reply.

She said: “Kids have these fantastic, creative ideas; you follow them through and nothing happens.

“I didn’t expect anything back, I really didn’t, we were so surprised and thrilled.”

The family are now planning “an adventure” on the Eurostar to visit Paris during the next school holidays.

Source: West Bridgford girl’s Paris note gets reply from Louvre – BBC News

Why the nude still shocks

A new exhibition explores art’s long fascination with the naked form. Why do representations of the human body continue to cause controversy? Sam Rigby finds out.

The nude has fascinated artists and viewers alike for centuries – even today it continues to be a subject that triggers debate and controversy. The unclothed human body is one of art’s greatest subjects. It has appeared in almost every major art movement from Cubism to Abstract Expressionism to the political art of more recent times. Why does the nude continue to fascinate us? That’s the question posed by a new exhibition, Nude, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, which opened earlier this month. It brings together 100 portrayals of the nude from the Tate’s collection, including paintings, sculptures, photographs and prints from the late 1700s through to the present day.

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Continue at the Source: BBC – Culture – Why the nude still shocks

Départ: Rimbaud

gun-that-shot-rimbaud

The most famous gun in French literary history, the revolver with which Paul Verlaine tried to kill his lover and fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud, sold for 434,500 euros ($460,000) at auction in Paris on Wednesday.

Départ

 

Enough seen. The vision has been encountered in all skies.

Enough had. Sounds of cities, in the evening, and in sunlight, and always.

Enough known. The stations of life. — O Sounds and Visions!

Departure amid new noise and affection!

Assez vu. La vision s’est rencontrée à tous les airs.

Assez eu. Rumeurs des villes, le soir, et au soleil, et toujours.

Assez connu. Les arrêts de la vie. – O Rumeurs et Visions !

Départ dans l’affection et le bruit neufs !

(Arthur Rimbaud ,1886)

The fascination with Fidel Castro of Saint-Germain-des-Prés 60s

In the 1960s, French intellectuals and artists, Gérard Philipe Jean-Paul Sartre, flocked to Havana, fascinated by the Cuban revolution. For them, Fidel Castro, died on the night of Friday to Saturday, will incarnate “hope”, at least for a time.Fidel Castro arrived when Stalinism was beginning to decline in ideals. He embodied hope, as something salutary, “said Jean Daniel, co-founder of L’Observateur, which then journalist with L’Express, met with Cuban in 1963. When on 1 January 1959, on the balcony of Santiago city Hall Cuba, Castro proclaimed the “beginning of the Revolution,” it is not yet a Marxist. But it is undeniably left and represents a great hope to some intellectuals after the Stalinist debacle.

Read Full Story: The fascination with Fidel Castro of Saint-Germain-des-Prés 60s