Tag: History
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Hôtel-Dieu
Hôtel-Dieu Hôtel or Hostel-Dieu is the name of hospitals that were founded all over France by the nobility and the rich for the sick and the poor. They were administered by the Catholic Church. Maybe that’s why Dieu was added to Hôtel or Hostel, derived from the Latin hospes. The Hôtel-Dieu in Louhans was constructed…
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Madonna
Madonna Romanesque Madonnas are not sweet. They look grave. They are fully aware of the responsible task that has ‘fallen into their lap’. Besides, they are a high point in the history of Western sculpture. Photo of the week: Detail from a Romanesque Virgin and Child, 12th cent., Musée Abbaye Royal de Brou, France 2024
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Stones
Stones Stones do (not) speak; let’s listen attentively. Photo of the week: Courtyard, Château-Chalons, France 2023
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3 x Lady Tanetmit
3 x Lady Tanetmit When looking at old Egyptian art with representation of human beings I am often touched by the delicate beauty and refinement of a face, a mouth, a look. The thousands of years that separate us disappear, and I feel like standing face to face with the image of a timeless, living…
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Stand-ins
Stand-ins This collection of funerary servants (shabtis) was found in the tomb of Neferibreheb who lived around 500 BC. Every day one of them is supposed to take the place of the deceased and work in the fields of the afterlife. Wrapped in a shroud like Osiris – the god of the dead and the…
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20.000 years of human activity
20.000 years of human activity Looking, studying, that’s what man has been doing since time immemorial. These two people in the Louvre-Lens look intently at a prehistoric flint object in the shape of a laurel leaf found in Rigny-sur-Arroux (Sâone-et-Loire), France. Around 20.000 years ago a fellow man has done his or her best in…
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Meeting at the ‘galerie du temps’ …
Meeting at the ‘galerie du temps’ … … between the faint reflection of a modern woman and a terracotta woman of more than two and a half thousand years ago, as I saw it in the beautiful ‘galerie du temps’ of the Louvre-Lens museum in the north of France. Photo of the week: Statue-vase in…
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Medieval France
Medieval France In the hamlet of Massy you can see, opposite a small Romanesque church, this house dating from about the same time. Only the partly renovated roof, the doors, a little window and the piece of asphalt road reveal that we are no longer in the Middle Ages. Photo of the week: Massy, La…
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Romanesque austerity
Romanesque austerity Less is more, aesthetically. That is why Romanesque art and architecture is so compelling. More basic and austere than the Saint-Pierre in Brancion you won’t find easily. Photo of the week: Eglise romane Saint-Pierre, 12th cent., Brancion, France 2023
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Dry stone walls
Dry stone walls You’ll find them everywhere. For thousands of years man has built walls and fences following the technique of searching, measuring, cutting, fitting and piling of stones. This is a wall in Brancion, a medieval village in Burgundy. In the back the castle of Brancion. Photo of the week: Brancion, France 2023
καιρός remembered 