Le Chevalier de Saint-George & the News

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Mulatto, Music

Tags

Cardinal Richelieu, French Revolution, Gregorian Calendar, Saint-George, Wikipedia, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George

I have not finished reading my colleagues’ posts, so I apologize. Preparing my posts of Saint-George was time-consuming. However, I have now seen YouTube’s biographical videos. There are several videos and they tell, in English, Saint-George’s entire story.

The Biographical Videos

Yesterday evening, I watched the biographical videos. They provide excellent information, but that period in French history is a little difficult for me to follow. During the French Revolution, the Jacobin calendar replaced to the Gregorian Calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII (7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) and still in use. As Napoleon rose to power, the Jacobin calendar remained the calendar used by the French and it is a calendar that tends to confuse me. However, there is help on the internet. To convert a Gregorian calendar date to a Jacobin date, click on Jacobin. I suppose the reverse is also possible.

The Military

But, let us return to our Chevalier’s years in the military. He was at first a gendarme and later a soldier. At the age of 19, when he graduated, George was made a Gendarme de la Garde du Roi, created in 1609 by Henri IV. The Garde du Roi‘s mission was to protect the dauphin, the name given the heir to the throne of France.

Therefore, as a member of the Garde du Roi, Joseph’s duties had little to do with his future military assignments. As I pointed out in the blog I posted yesterday (September 12, 2012), the Chevalier de Saint-George “served in the army of the Revolution against France’s foreign enemies.” (Chevalier de Saint-George, Wikipedia), but there is more to say. At one point, Joseph took command of a regiment of a thousand free people of color, which brought on his demise.

Discrepancies

According to the YouTube biographical videos, upon his dismissal from the military, on September 25, 1793, Saint-George was condemned to death. This information differs from the information provided in Saint-George’s Wikipedia entry. Joseph was an aristocrat and, as an aristocrat, he could have been guillotined. However, according to Wikipedia, he was accused of using public funds for private gain. Wikipedia does not chronicle a death sentence.

* * *

Given that I would like to send this post as soon as possible, I will close now. There will be a third and final post on the Chevalier de Saint-George.

The News

English

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/

The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The Globe and Mail: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html

Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN

CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/

CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/

French

Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/

Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/

Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/

La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/

German

Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/

September 13, 2012

WordPress

My Country, your Country, our World…

29 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Sharing, Songs

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Barge Haulers of the Volga, Félix-Antoine Savard, Gregorian Calendar, Ilya Repin, Kharkov Governorate, Quebec, Russia, Volga River

Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–1873

Ilya Repin, 5 August [O.S. 24 July] 1844, Chuguyev, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire – September 29, 1930)

Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–1873

Photo credit: Wikipedia

[O.S. 24 July]: O. S. means Old Style. There is a discrepancy of twelve days between the Julian Calendar and the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582. For instance, according to the Gregorian Calendar, Christmas occurs on the 25th of December, the date closest to the longest night, but in the Eastern Church the Nativity is celebrated on January 6th, twelve days later. On that day, the Western Church celebrates the rapidly disappearing Epiphany. So, when you see O. S., add twelve days to switch from the old style to the new style.

In my last blog, I noted the existence of a site containing Russian and Canadian art. I have since been exploring Russian Art. I have discovered a picture of rafts of wood in rivers. Does this mean there were Russian draveurs as in Félix-Antoine Savard‘s Menaud, Maître-Draveur, men who risked their lives driving rafts or cages of wood down rivers, like the Canadian raftsmen?

Ilya Repin, Storm on the Volga, 1891

As for the Barge Haulers of the Volga, to a certain extent, they resemble the Canadiens voyageurs who were at times spared a painful portage by standing on the two sides of a waterway hauling canoes. But the boats the Volga River boatmen pulled were extremely heavy.

I have also seen villages and towns that are quite similar to Canadian and particularly Quebec villages and towns. A church stands at the centre, above other buildings, except that the pointed clochers (steeples) of Quebec villages are onion domes or steeples in Russia or pear-shaped domes, in the Ukraine. But these domes, sometimes swirly in shape, are also found in other countries, Bavaria for instance, and on various buildings, including the Vatican, the

Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco, in Venice, other basilicas and churches, the United States Capitol, etc. They are mostly of Byzantine and Greek origin. The Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans on 29 May 1453.

But to return to our Russian villages and towns, the church dominates the landscape, because of its clocher, as it does in Quebec villages and small towns.

I am not including the news. But I have chosen to insert Bulgarian bass Boris Christoff‘s (18 May 1914 – 28 June 1993) interpretation of the Song of the Volga Boatmen.

29 July 2012

WordPress

The Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, Comments, Palimpsests

20 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Illuminated Manuscripts, Literature

≈ Comments Off on The Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, Comments, Palimpsests

Tags

Book of Hours, Bruges, Byzantine art, Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, Fitzwilliam Museum, Gregorian Calendar, intertextualité, motifs, palimpsests, Zodiac

A detail from the Macclesfield Psalter, England, East Anglia, c.1330 MS.1-2005 f.193v (Photo credit: Fitzwilliam Museum)

There is more to say on every subject I have discussed regarding feasts and the seasons. For instance, we haven’t looked at the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, a sixteenth-century masterpiece, preserved at the University of Cambridge. With respect to the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours (Bruges, 1510), the Folio Society has published a limited number of copies of this extraordinary Franco-Flemish manuscript. In fact, a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum site will reveal the existence of other illuminated manuscripts.

The Fitzwilliam Book of Hours is particularly interesting in that it represents, among other topics, the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, which, as I have noted elsewhere, albeit tentatively, underlies the concept of keeping hours: we keep Vigil. As well, the narrator mentions the incorporation into Books of Hours of pre-Christian elements. Books of Hours are

a daily Vigil (the Canonical Hours);
an account of the Seasons (the Solstices and the Equinoxes, marked by feasts);
an account of the labours of each months;
a Gregorian calendar showing feasts, dates on which saints are remembered, etc.;
a compendium of psalms, prayers, chants, etc.;
a Zodiac calendar also including mythological references predating Christianity;
etc.

But, perhaps more importantly, Books of Hours also point to oneness in diversity. The degree of darkness and light has been celebrated in most cultures. And if the dragon is menacing to Europeans and friendly in China, it is nevertheless a universal zoomorphic animal. So is the Unicorn.

Moreover, although the degree of darkness and light is a scientific truth and a demonstration of heliocentrism, it is also a cultural marker.

And we have also seen the twofold dimension of time, the vertical and the horizonal: kairos and chronos. To a large extent, our celebrations are a manifestation of the moment (kairos) as opposed to time infinite.

As for the texts we have glimpsed, one of my readers pointed out that they are palimpsests. There is a text underneath the text, and a text underneath the second text, as well as a text underneath the third text. Yet the texts, mostly similar texts, thus unveiled may have originated in one culture.

The story within the story structure reflects a deeper level of intertextualité than can exist between texts. So intertextualité does not happen only between texts, but there are instances of text(s) within texts, or play(s) within the play.

And we also have motifs: the mille-fleurs motif, the Bizantine leaf and grape motif, the Greek key motif, variations on the Celtic eternal or endless knot motif.

In short, there is an abundance of similarities, yet originality and uniqueness remain. Text, graphic art, including anonymous art and decorative art, and music all stem from one mold, the human mind and the human senses, yet there is constant newness and youthfulness to things eternal.

Books of Hours