LE MONT SAINT MICHEL PEINT PAR JAMES WEBB

JAMES WEBB (1835-1895)
Le Mont Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft
France (Normandie)

La montagne
Le Mont-Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft) est une commune insulaire de Normandie, en France. Le Mont Saint-Michel (d'abord appelé Mont Tombe) est constitué de leucogranite, qui s'est solidifié à partir d'une intrusion souterraine de magma en fusion il y a environ 525 millions d'années, pendant la période cambrienne. Il est situé à environ un kilomètre au large de la côte nord-ouest du pays, à l'embouchure de la rivière Couesnon près d'Avranches et a une superficie de 100 hectares (247 acres).
L'île a tenu des fortifications stratégiques depuis l'Antiquité. Depuis le 8ème siècle de l' ère chrétienne, elle est le siège du monastère dont elle tire son nom. La composition structurelle de la ville illustre la société féodale qui l'a construite : au sommet, Dieu, l'abbaye et le monastère ; en bas, les grandes salles ; puis magasins et logements ; et au fond, à l'extérieur des murs, des maisons de pêcheurs et d'agriculteurs. La position de la commune la rendait accessible à marée basse aux nombreux pèlerins de son abbaye, mais défendable car une marée montante échouait, chassait ou noyait les assaillants potentiels. Le Mont est resté invaincu pendant la guerre de Cent Ans ; une petite garnison repoussa une  attaque des Anglais en 1433. Les bénéfices de sa défense naturelle ne sont pas perdus pour Louis XI, qui transforme le Mont en prison. A partir de ce moment là,  l'abbaye fut de plus  utilisée plus régulièrement comme prison pendant toute la période  monarchique.  Le Mont Saint Michel est l'un des monuments les plus reconnaissables de France, visité par plus de 3 millions de personnes chaque année, avec sa baie il est inscrit sur la liste du patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO. Plus de 60 bâtiments de la commune sont protégés au titre des "Monuments historiques".
Au 11e siècle, l'architecte italien William di Volpiano fut choisi par Richard II, duc de Normandie, pour être l'entrepreneur de construction de l'église du Mont Saint-Michel. Il conçoit l'église romane de l'abbaye, plaçant audacieusement la croisée du transept au sommet du mont. De nombreuses cryptes et chapelles souterraines ont dû être construites pour compenser ce poids ; ceux-ci ont formé la base de la structure ascendante de soutien que l'on peut voir aujourd'hui.
Robert de Thorigny, grand partisan d'Henri II d'Angleterre (également duc de Normandie), renforce la structure des bâtiments et construit la façade principale de l'église au 12e siècle.
En 1204, Guy de Thouars, régent de la duchesse de Bretagne, vassal du roi de France, entreprend le siège du Mont. Après avoir incendié le village et massacré la population, il fut obligé de battre en retraite sous les puissantes murailles de l'abbaye. Les bâtiments et les toits ont été la proie des flammes. Horrifié par la cruauté et les exactions de son allié breton, Philippe Auguste offrit à l'abbé Jordan une subvention pour la construction d'un nouvel ensemble architectural gothique qui comprenait l'adjonction du réfectoire et du cloître.
On attribue à Charles VI l'ajout de fortifications majeures au mont abbatial, la construction de tours, de cours successives et le renforcement des remparts.
Depuis 2001, une communauté de moines et de moniales des Fraternités monastiques de Jérusalem, envoyées de la maison-mère de St-Gervais-et-St-Protais à Paris, vit en communauté sur le Mont Saint-Michel. Ils ont remplacé les moines bénédictins revenus au Mont en 1966. Ils sont locataires du Centre des Monuments Historiques Nationaux et ne participent pas à la gestion de l'abbaye. La communauté se réunit quatre fois par jour pour réciter l'office liturgique dans l'abbaye même (ou dans la crypte de Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges en hiver). De cette manière, le bâtiment conserve sa vocation première de lieu de prière et de chant de la gloire de Dieu. La présence de la communauté attire de nombreux visiteurs et pèlerins qui viennent se joindre aux différentes célébrations liturgiques.
En 2012, la communauté a entrepris la rénovation d'une maison sur le Mont, le Logis Saint-Abraham, qui sert de maison d'accueil pour les pèlerins en retraite

Le peintre
James Webb (1835–1895),  qui n'a aucun rapport avec le télescope spatial du même nom,  était un peintre britannique spécialisé dans les vues et paysages marins bine qu'il vécut toute sa vie à Chelsea, Londres !   était né dans une famille d'artistes. Son père Archibald Webb et son frère Byron Webb étaient également des peintres réputés. Il exposa à Londres à la Royal Academy et au British Institute entre 1850 et 1888, et nombre de ses œuvres sont toujours accrochées à Londres dans les collections du Victoria and Albert Museum et de la Tate Gallery . D'autres œuvres se retrouvent dans un grand nombre de galeries provinciales. Webb était un élève de Clarkson Frederick Stanfield .

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
            Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
            Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

THE MONT SAINT-MICHEL BY THEODORE ROUSSEAU

THEODORE ROUSSEAU (1812-1867)  

Mont Saint Michel (92m-302ft) 

France (Normandie)

                                                               

The mount  

Le Mont-Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft) is an island commune in Normandy, France. Mont Saint-Michel (first called Mont Tombe) consists of leucogranite, which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith. Early studies of Mont Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete.

It is located about one kilometre (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 100 hectares (247 acres) in size.

The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers. The commune's position - on an island just 600 m from land - made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; a small garrison fended off a full attack by the English in 1433.  The reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison. Thereafter the abbey began to be used more regularly as a jail during the monarchy.

One of France's most recognizable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

 Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as  "Monuments historiques" (Historical buildings).

In the 11th century, the italian architect William di Volpiano was chosen by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, to be the building contractor of the Mont Saint-Michel church. He designed the Romanesque church of the abbey, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight; these formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today.

Robert de Thorigny, a great supporter of Henry II of England (also Duke of Normandy), reinforced the structure of the buildings and built the main façade of the church in the 12th century.

In 1204, Guy de Thouars, regent for the Duchess of Brittany, as vassal of the King of France, undertook a siege of the Mount. After having set fire to the village and having massacred the population, he was obliged to beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The buildings, and the roofs fell prey to the flames. Horrified by the cruelty and the exactions of his Breton ally, Philip Augustus offered Abbot Jordan a grant for the construction of a new Gothic architectural set which included the addition of the refectory and cloister.

Charles VI is credited with adding major fortifications to the abbey-mount, building towers, successive courtyards, and strengthening the ramparts.

Since 2001, a community of monks and nuns of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem, sent from the mother-house of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais in Paris, have been living as a community on Mont Saint-Michel. They replaced the Benedictine monks who returned to the Mount in 1966. They are tenants of the centre for National Historical Monuments and are not involved in the management of the abbey. The community meets four times a day to recite the liturgical office in the abbey itself (or in the crypt of Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges in winter). In this way, the building keeps its original purpose as a place of prayer and singing the glory of God. The presence of the community attracts many visitors and pilgrims who come to join in the various liturgical celebrations.

In 2012, the community undertook the renovation of a house on the Mount, the Logis Saint-Abraham, which is used as a guest house for pilgrims on retreat.

The painter 

Etienne- Pierre-Théodore Rousseau was a French painter of the Barbizon school.  Not to be confused with Henri Rousseau (called Le Douanier), he was born in Paris, of a bourgeois family and received  at first a business training, but soon displayed aptitude for painting.  The influence of classically trained artists was against  Rousseau and its paintings had to wait until 1848 before to be presented adequately to the public.

In 1848, Rousseau took up his residence in the forest village of Barbizon, and spent most of his remaining days in the vicinity. He was now able to obtain fair sums for his pictures (but only about one-tenth of their value thirty years after his death), and the number of his admirers increased. He was still ignored by the authorities, for while Narcisse Virgilio Diaz was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1851,  Rousseau was left undecorated at this time, but was nominated and awarded the Cross soon afterwards. 

At the Exposition Universelle of 1853, where all Rousseau's rejected pictures of the previous twenty years were gathered together, his works were acknowledged to form one of the best of the many splendid groups there exhibited. But, after an unsuccessful sale of his works by auction in 1861, he contemplated leaving Paris for Amsterdam or London, or even New York. Rousseau's pictures are always grave in character, with an air of exquisite melancholy. They are well finished when they profess to be completed pictures, but Rousseau spent so much time developing his subjects that his absolutely completed works are comparatively few. He left many canvases with parts of the picture realized in detail and with the remainder somewhat vague; and also a good number of sketches and water-color drawings. His pen work in monochrome on paper is rare. There are a number of good pictures by him in the Louvre, and the Wallace collection contains one of his most important Barbizon pictures. There is also an example in the Ionides collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

MONT SAINT-MICHEL BY THE LIMBOURG BROTHERS

THE LIMBOURG BROTHERS (1385-1416) 

 Mont Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft)

France (Normandie)

In Le Mont Saint Michel - La Fête de l'Archange, Tempera on velum, 1411-1416,
in The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Musée Condé, Chantilly, France

The mount  

Le Mont-Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft) is an island commune in Normandy, France. Mont Saint-Michel (first called Mont Tombe) consists of leucogranite, which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith. Early studies of Mont Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete.

It is located about one kilometre (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 100 hectares (247 acres) in size.

The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers. The commune's position - on an island just 600 m from land - made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; a small garrison fended off a full attack by the English in 1433.  The reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison. Thereafter the abbey began to be used more regularly as a jail during the monarchy.

One of France's most recognizable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

 Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as  "Monuments historiques" (Historical buildings).

In the 11th century, the italian architect William di Volpiano was chosen by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, to be the building contractor of the Mont Saint-Michel church. He designed the Romanesque church of the abbey, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight; these formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today.

Robert de Thorigny, a great supporter of Henry II of England (also Duke of Normandy), reinforced the structure of the buildings and built the main façade of the church in the 12th century.

In 1204, Guy de Thouars, regent for the Duchess of Brittany, as vassal of the King of France, undertook a siege of the Mount. After having set fire to the village and having massacred the population, he was obliged to beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The buildings, and the roofs fell prey to the flames. Horrified by the cruelty and the exactions of his Breton ally, Philip Augustus offered Abbot Jordan a grant for the construction of a new Gothic architectural set which included the addition of the refectory and cloister.

Charles VI is credited with adding major fortifications to the abbey-mount, building towers, successive courtyards, and strengthening the ramparts.

Since 2001, a community of monks and nuns of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem, sent from the mother-house of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais in Paris, have been living as a community on Mont Saint-Michel. They replaced the Benedictine monks who returned to the Mount in 1966. They are tenants of the centre for National Historical Monuments and are not involved in the management of the abbey. The community meets four times a day to recite the liturgical office in the abbey itself (or in the crypt of Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges in winter). In this way, the building keeps its original purpose as a place of prayer and singing the glory of God. The presence of the community attracts many visitors and pilgrims who come to join in the various liturgical celebrations.

In 2012, the community undertook the renovation of a house on the Mount, the Logis Saint-Abraham, which is used as a guest house for pilgrims on retreat.

The artists 

The Limbourg brothers, or in Dutch Gebroeders van Limburg (Herman, Paul, and Johan; fl. 1385 - 1416), were famous Dutch miniature painters from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy, working in the style known as International Gothic. They created what is certainly the best known late medieval illuminated manuscript, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

At the end of 1399 the brohers  were travelling to visit Nijmegen but, owing to a war, they were captured in Brussels. Since their mother could not pay the ransom of 55 gold escuz, the local goldsmiths' guild started to collect the money. Eventually Philip the Bold paid the ransom for the sake of their uncle Malouel, his painter. 

From surviving documents it is known that in February 1402, Paul and Johan were contracted by Philip to work for four years exclusively on illuminating a bible. This may or may not have been the Bible Moralisée, Ms.fr.166 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, which is indisputably an early work by the Limbourg brothers. Philip II died in 1404 before the brothers had completed their work.

After Philip's death, Herman, Paul, and Johan later in 1405 came to work for his brother John, Duke of Berry (Jean, Duc de Berry) who was an extravagant collector of arts and especially books. Their first assignment was to illuminate a Book of Hours, now known as the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry (The Beautiful Hours of the Duke of Berry) held in The Cloisters of the MET in New York City. This work was finished in 1409 much to the satisfaction of the duke, and he assigned them to an even more ambitious project for a Book of Hours. This became the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, (The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry)  which is widely regarded as the peak of late medieval book illumination, and possibly the most valuable book in the world.

When the three painters and their sponsor died in 1416, possibly victims of plague, the manuscript was left unfinished. It was further embellished in the 1440s by an anonymous painter, who many art historians believe was Barthélemy d'Eyck. In 1485–1489, it was brought to its present state by the painter Jean Colombe on behalf of the Duke of Savoy. 

Acquired by the Duc d'Aumale in 1856, the book is now MS 65 in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.

Consisting of a total of 206 leaves of very fine quality parchment, 30 cm in height by 21.5 cm in width, the manuscript contains 66 large miniatures and 65 small. The design of the book, which is long and complex, has undergone many changes and reversals. Many artists contributed to its miniatures, calligraphy, initials, and marginal decorations, but determining their precise number and identity remains a matter of debate. Painted largely by artists from the Low Countries, often using rare and costly pigments and gold, and with an unusually large number of illustrations, the book is one of the most lavish late medieval illuminated manuscripts.

After three centuries in obscurity, the Très Riches Heures gained wide recognition in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite having only very limited public exposure at the Musée Condé. Its miniatures helped to shape an ideal image of the Middle Ages in the collective imagination, often being interpreted to serve political and nationalist agendas.  This is particularly true for the calendar images, which are the most commonly reproduced. They offer vivid representations of peasants performing agricultural work as well as aristocrats in formal attire, against a background of remarkable medieval architecture.

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2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MONT SAINT-MICHEL PAINTED BY J.M.W.TURNER

J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1851) 

 Mont Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft)

France (Normandie)

1.  In Mont St Michel for The English channel Watercolour, 1827, FAM, San Francisco 

2.  In Mont Saint Michel sketches, Watercolour on paper 1826 Tate Britain, London 

About the paintings

Turner travelled through Normandy and Brittany in 1826  and 1827 at a time when the region was beginning to attract artists interested in the relationship of its architecture to that of England. The focal point of most tours was Mont St Michel, a casket-like architectural gem seemingly floating in the middle of the surrounding bay. Turner's watercolours of the island stress its fantastic, mirage-like qualities at the expense of giving precise details.

The mount  
Le Mont-Saint-Michel (92 m - 302 ft) is an island commune in Normandy, France. Mont Saint-Michel (first called Mont Tombe) consists of leucogranite, which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith. Early studies of Mont Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete.
It is located about one kilometre (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 100 hectares (247 acres) in size.
The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers. The commune's position - on an island just 600 m from land - made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; a small garrison fended off a full attack by the English in 1433.  The reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison. Thereafter the abbey began to be used more regularly as a jail during the monarchy.
One of France's most recognizable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
 Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as  "Monuments historiques" (Historical buildings).
In the 11th century, the italian architect William di Volpiano was chosen by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, to be the building contractor of the Mont Saint-Michel church. He designed the Romanesque church of the abbey, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight; these formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today.
Robert de Thorigny, a great supporter of Henry II of England (also Duke of Normandy), reinforced the structure of the buildings and built the main façade of the church in the 12th century.
In 1204, Guy de Thouars, regent for the Duchess of Brittany, as vassal of the King of France, undertook a siege of the Mount. After having set fire to the village and having massacred the population, he was obliged to beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The buildings, and the roofs fell prey to the flames. Horrified by the cruelty and the exactions of his Breton ally, Philip Augustus offered Abbot Jordan a grant for the construction of a new Gothic architectural set which included the addition of the refectory and cloister.
Charles VI is credited with adding major fortifications to the abbey-mount, building towers, successive courtyards, and strengthening the ramparts.
Since 2001, a community of monks and nuns of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem, sent from the mother-house of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais in Paris, have been living as a community on Mont Saint-Michel. They replaced the Benedictine monks who returned to the Mount in 1966. They are tenants of the centre for National Historical Monuments and are not involved in the management of the abbey. The community meets four times a day to recite the liturgical office in the abbey itself (or in the crypt of Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges in winter). In this way, the building keeps its original purpose as a place of prayer and singing the glory of God. The presence of the community attracts many visitors and pilgrims who come to join in the various liturgical celebrations.
In 2012, the community undertook the renovation of a house on the Mount, the Logis Saint-Abraham, which is used as a guest house for pilgrims on retreat.

The painter 
The english painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence in the history of painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism.
In his thirties, Turner travelled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice.   Turner's talent was recognized early in his life. Financial independence allowed Turner to innovate freely; his mature work is characterized by a chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to David Piper's The Illustrated History of Art, his later pictures were called "fantastic puzzles." Turner was recognized as an artistic genius: influential English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most "stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature."
Turner's major venture into printmaking was the Liber Studiorum (Book of Studies), seventy prints that he worked on from 1806 to 1819. The Liber Studiorum was an expression of his intentions for landscape art. The idea was loosely based on Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth), where Lorrain  had recorded his completed paintings; a series of print copies of these drawings, by then at Devonshire House, had been a huge publishing success. Turner's plates were meant to be widely disseminated, and categorized the genre into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral.  His printmaking was a major part of his output, and a museum is devoted to it, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 1974 by Douglas Montrose-Graem to house his collection of Turner prints.
Turner placed human beings in many of his paintings to indicate his affection for humanity on the one hand (note the frequent scenes of people drinking or working or walking in the foreground), but its vulnerability and vulgarity amid the 'sublime' nature of the world on the other. 'Sublime' here means awe-inspiring, savage grandeur, a natural world unmastered by man, evidence of the power of God – a theme that romanticist artists and poets were exploring in this period. Although these late paintings appear to be 'impressionistic' and therefore a forerunner of the French school, Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in the world, rather than responding primarily to optical phenomena.
Turner used pigments like carmine in his paintings, knowing that they were not long-lasting, despite the advice of contemporary experts to use more durable pigments. As a result, many of his colours have now faded greatly.
John Ruskin says in his "Notes" on Turner in March 1878 : "His true master was Dr Monro; to the practical teaching of that first patron and the wise simplicity of method of watercolour study, in which he was disciplined by him and companioned by Girtin, the healthy and constant development of the greater power is primarily to be attributed; the greatness of the power itself, it is impossible to over-estimate. "