Day 33.58333: Clooney

Listening to: "Sisters" from White Christmas

Yesterday, I went to the Cluny Museum. And no, it didn't feature Rosemary Clooney singing "Sisters," sadly.

Nor did it feature this Clooney:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/George_Clooney-4_The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats_TIFF09_(cropped).jpg

I admit, I wasn't overly excited for this museum. All I knew was that it housed Medieval artwork, and what I know about Medieval artwork is that the artists never seemed to paint anything but the Madonna. Now, I like a Madonna painting/sculpture as much as the next person, but I do 

Yeah, the Cluny Museum is right by the famous Sorbonne. Of course, I am not brilliant enough to take classes there (or at Sciences Po, for the matter), so all I can do is take pictures of their prettier Metro stop.

This is definitely a vast improvement over the Convention Metro stop with its multiple Cinquante Nuances de Gris posters.

Okay, I took this picture solely because it kind of looks like that mother is pushing her child into a well from this vantage point. By the way, I saw so many gingers Wednesday. Is there a convention going on?

I arrived sans the class again, and since I had to skip a hearty breakfast, I spent money on two overpriced (albeit delicious) croissants and a pot of Earl Grey tea. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am all for this thing where they serve you tea in the pot and let you pour multiple cups. You definitely get your money's worth that way, and you can feel all prim and proper with your pot and cup. Problem was, I wasn't that early, so 1:50 pm was oh-crap-I-don't-want-to-lose-them-again time. I poured all my tea in a giant paper cup, added a pound of sugar (I admit that I have childish taste in coffee and tea), and rushed off to the entrance again. Thankfully, the ginger kid had not fallen into the well.

Now, unwilling to throw away a perfectly good cup of tea, I chugged that steaming cup in record time. I thought I might burn myself, but given the chill in the air, it was a risk I was willing to take. But I'm sure you realize that my pride did not last after about an hour...

So we went inside, and now I finally had my professor back to explain things. That was very good, as I have a very limited knowledge of this type of art and architecture, as well as a superficial, for-literature-purposes knowledge of the Bible. I am ashamed too; the Bible is the original work, where all the allusions and idioms from pretty much any book come from.

Once again, I had a "duh" moment when my professor explained that most of the sculptures here are originals from the Notre Dame and the Saint-Chapelle. Why? Once again, iconoclasts, who associated the Catholic images with the royal and the richer bourgeoisie, got a thrill out of destroying these remarkable pieces of art. Why do we do stupid things like that???

Given that the heads are separated from the bodies and that Medieval art isn't really known for personalization, these figures are unknown. Possibly saints, possibly kings. Obviously they had some kind of reverential status, or why would anybody build a statue for them? The identification process is not aided by the lack of noses, eye detail, and sometimes half a face...

We have another representation of Adam, but I prefer Rodin's. We went on and on about the S-curve and the allusion to Greek and Roman art visible in the detail, but I was very intrigued by the thing coming out of his sternum and connecting to his hand. 

"What do you think it is?" my professor said when I asked her about it. Ah, the standard answer of all professors.

"Is it a rib?" When I saw no expression on her face and a few smirks from my classmates, I made my oh-wait-let's-backtrack face and squeaked, "Or it isn't?"

Turns out, it was just a structural support. Adam's arm would've have a hard time staying up without it. So not every choice in art is made for aesthetic purposes (oh man, I'm going to provoke Joyce into a fight). Like in the apocryphal story of the writer when asked why the drapes were blue and what that represented... 

"Because they're fucking blue, that's why." (Sorry for the language. Should I get some Life Boy and wash my mouth out?)

I've already made my point about headless statues. But I'm not sure the same philosophy applies to statues of religious figures like pious saints.

And as I expected, the Madonna was everywhere. But I was more appreciative when my professor pointed out how the style of the sculptures changed over the Dark Ages, as we transition from Gothic to "Renaissance" art. In the oldest depictions, she's very stiff, and the baby Jesus looks more like Benjamin Button than a real child. But over the years, artists finally branched out and featured her sitting, wearing a crown (and thus mixing multiple biblical stories), looking happy and motherly, and even breastfeeding the baby in one. That was kind of shocking. But it was a hallmark, as depicting a mother breastfeeding is about as maternal as an image can get:

Now, stained glass is a personal favorite of mine. Especially when the stained glass serve as visual "ballads": they tell stories through pictures (rather than through music). So the images to the right I think deal with the tale of Samson and his enslavement. The one of the left is him having is eye pulled out, which I'm sure Emily Dickinson would agree that it would hurt like hell.

Once again, all human figures were drawn from a master model, so they all pretty much look the same. They are only distinguishable by their talismans. Most of the saints have at least one so people can know who they're looking at/praying to. The one we looked at was St. James, who always has scallops floating by him. No one actually knew why he is associated with scallops (though I'm sure the Internet could tell us), so it seemed even more out of place without any context.

Now, since my friend Eddy is playing Jesus in Marist's production of Godspell (go, Edwin!), I've been taking a lot of pictures of Christ figures to give him inspiration. As you can tell, artists made Jesus look however they wanted. In one, he's emaciated and hangs in defeat. In the other, he has more meat on his bones and looks more placated than resigned. And then in this third one, I honestly think he's about to do the Mockingjay salute. And yes, Mother, I'm fully aware that if there's a Hell, I'm so going to it for the casual comments I'm making.

These tapestries are really famous (apparently). They're called The Lady and the Unicorn, although quick counters in the audience will note that there is more than one tapestry featuring a lady and a unicorn. (There's six in total.) Five of the tapestries represent the "five senses," a myth that Aristotle started. (We have lots of senses: sense of balance, sense of temperature, etc.--but definitely more than five.) Honestly, whenever there are a series of pieces depicting either the "five senses" or "earth, wind, water, and fire," they all cannot be equal in quality. The easier ones to understand look nicer to me; the others, I'm just wondering, In what way is that supposed to represent hearing? 

These are secular works of art, and that is because they were commissioned by a wealthy family. It was a big deal if you could have your own tapestries featuring mythical animals made, I guess. But it seems less like artistic appreciation and more like, "Hey, look at all my gold chains, I look so wealthy." So tapestries were the Dark Age equivalent of today's bling--or those stupid sports cars that always try to run you over in DC.

Now we have come to my favorite part: completely random things that I found interesting but that no one else will understand my fascination with.

This totally looks like the knight's helmet that Keanu Reeves wears in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: "I am Darth Ted."

Stained glass can be secular as well, it turns out. This features a chess game in which the woman is about to lose (of course she is...), and the picture itself demonstrates how people showed off their wealth: fancy hats, large coin purses, engraved chairs, etc.

Just slightly terrifying. Slightly.

We can never forget the birds. 

Ha, they thought this was a unicorn horn. But it actually belongs to a far more interesting animal: the majestic narwhal (and yes, that is a real animal).

Sculpture off to the side in a recreation of a family's personal chapel. Yeah, personal chapels were a thing, but it wasn't like everyone had one.

I am sure my class was less than thrilled at my presence that day. Last week they got to miss out on my answers barked out at the professor like a contestant on Jeopardy. But I just can't shut up when I am present.

Q: This painting contains three panels.

A: What is a triptych?

Ding ding! I am such a nerd. And it's not like these answers are even earning me money: I just answer them because I am overeager.