Van Gogh's Ear

Vincent Van Gogh's turbulent and tragic life makes for romantic legend, and much of it is true. But one common misconception is that he cut off his ear over the love of a woman. In fact, the official story long has been that he cut it off after a fight with his sometime friend, Paul Gauguin. The official story now has been called into question.

From The Guardian, in May:

According to official versions, the disturbed Dutch painter cut off his ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Bleeding heavily, Van Gogh then walked to a brothel and presented the severed ear to an astonished prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep in a blood-drenched bed.

But two German art historians, who have spent 10 years reviewing the police investigations, witness accounts and the artists' letters, argue that Gauguin, a fencing ace, most likely sliced off the ear with his sword during a fight, and the two artists agreed to hush up the truth.

In Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, published in Germany, Hamburg-based academics Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans argue that the official version of events, based largely on Gauguin's accounts, contain inconsistencies and that both artists hinted that the truth was more complex.

Van Gogh and Gauguin's troubled friendship was legendary. In 1888, Van Gogh persuaded him to come to Arles in the south of France to live with him in the Yellow House he had set up as a "studio of the south". They spent the autumn painting together before things soured. Just before Christmas, they fell out. Van Gogh, seized by an attack of a metabolic disease became aggressive and was apparently crushed when Gauguin said he was leaving for good.

Van Gogh had wrapped the ear in paper, and when he handed it to Rachel, asked her to "keep this object carefully." Van Gogh soon was taken into custody, and placed in a hospital, where his mental state was far worse than his physical. The hospital is now a cultural center known as Espace Van Gogh.



Van Gogh had arrived in Arles in early 1888.



The Yellow House stood just outside the town's medieval walls, near what is now this roundabout.

Pont du Gard

Near the town of Nimes, and built either in the last century BCE or the first century CE, the aqueduct and bridge known as the Pont du Gard may be the best remaining example of the genius that was Roman engineering.

Monaco And Nice

Monaco

Monaco is a tiny independent nation, tucked into the southern French coast. Its national defense is the responsibility of France, but it is a constitutional monarchy, ruled by the Grimaldi family since 1297, and a full member of the United Nations. The vast majority of its population is wealthy foreigners, who live there because it is a tax haven. Its chief industry is tourism, and its botanic gardens and casino are world famous.

We stopped in for just a couple hours, on a drive from Torino to Nice, and the gardens already were closed.



Beneath this long garden and series of fountains is an enormous garage.



The casino has a strict dress code. Shorts and tee-shirts don't cut it. We didn't go inside.

Three Small Towns In Provence

Carpentras

Carpentras dates at least to Roman times.





Medieval tower.

Avignon

By the beginning of the 14th Century, Italy was wracked by wars between rival religious and political factions, rival merchant states, and rival factions within these factions and merchant states. The "Holy" "Roman" "Emperor" Heinrich VII invaded, but failed to take Rome. And amidst this violent turmoil, Giotto reinvented art and launched the southern Renaissance, while Dante and Petrarch reinvented poetry. And also amidst this turmoil, and with his papacy threatened, Pope Clement V, under pressure from the French King Philippe IV le Bel, moved the papal court to Avignon, which was not actually in France, but was in the Venaissan enclave granted to the papacy by its Angevin clients. The next seven popes would be French, but not all Catholic nations would accept them. The Catholic Church again would be torn by schisms.

The 14th Century saw Europe torn apart and reinvented, and France was at the heart of it. The Black Death would kill perhaps eight million people, in France alone. Jews and lepers would be burned, on order of King Philip V. The Hundred Years War with England would rage. The Capetian dynasty would end. The Dukes of Burgundy, who controlled not only that modern French region, but also what are now the modern Benelux nations, sided with England, attempting to form a sort of middle kingdom, between the war-ravaged France and Germany. Under their patronage, Claus Sluter would launch the northern Renaissance.

In the 1330s, Pope Benedict XII began the massive renovation of the Avignon ecclesiastical palace, tranforming it into the grand Palais des Papes. In 1377, St. Catherine of Siena convinced Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome, which soon led to yet more schisms within the Church, including the election of an alternate pope in Avignon.


The Palais des Papes



A collection of medieval catapult balls.



A courtyard.

France Talks Tough on Iran

Guardian:

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said yesterday his country had to prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear programme, but added that he did not believe any such action was imminent.

Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Mr Kouchner also told RTL radio and LCI television that the world's main powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting nuclear weapons, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in the Islamic Republic.

"We must prepare for the worst," Mr Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."

Asked about the warning, he said it was normal to prepare for various eventualities. "We are preparing ourselves by trying to put together plans that are the chiefs of staff's prerogative [but] that is not about to happen tomorrow," he added.

The Sarkozy regime is not being helpful. It needs be noted that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei believes new sanctions, now, would be counterproductive. The world needs to give ElBaradei a chance.

Paris

St. Séverin, a mostly Fourteenth Century Flamboyant Gothic church, on the Left Bank. The narrow street makes it hard to get a decent photo, but the flame-like design in the window typifies this late phase of Gothic architecture.

Avignon

Angouleme

These domed cathedrals are unique to western France. It's not known for certain, but seems plausible that the style was adopted after the Second Crusade, when Eleanor of Aquitaine's large retinue would have been influenced by Muslim architecture.

Mont St-Michel

Paris

Place du Concorde.

The largest public square in Paris, it was first Place Louis XV; then Place de la Révolution, where the guillotine was set up for many of the Terror's executions, including those of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Set between the Champs Elysees and the Tuileries Gardens, it now fronts a fashionable hotel and the Naval Ministry. The Obelisk of Luxor was a gift from Egypt in 1829, its hieroglyphics portraying the reigns of Ramses II and Ramses III.

Saint-Denis

The Basilique de Saint-Denis, in the suburb just outside Paris, was the first Gothic cathedral, and contains the tombs of most of the French Kings and Queens. Transformed from an earlier style, beginning in the 1130s, its design owes to Abbot Suger, friend and counselor to Louis VI (the Fat) and his son, Louis VII.

This shot shows the pointed arches, expanded stained glass, open spaces, enhanced elevations, and ribbed vaults that were among the characteristics that differentiated Gothic architecture from the earlier Romanesque style.

Chinon

Fortified in the Tenth Century CE, it became one of the primary Angevin castles, and a frequent residence of England's King Henry II, who died here, on July 6, 1189.

In 1307, when King Philip IV (the Fair) of France brutally suppressed the Knights Templars, some were imprisoned here.

A century later, it was home to Charles VII, Dauphin of France, while in exile from Paris, during the Hundred Years' War. On March 8, 1429, Joan of Arc was granted audience, but Charles disguised himself among his courtiers. That she wasn't fooled, and picked him out of the crowd, helped convince Charles to follow her advice, go to Reims to be crowned king, and aggressively pursue the expulsion of the English from France.

Beaune

The Hôtel-Dieu of the Hospices Civils de Beaune was built in the late 1440s, and opened in 1452, as a hospital for the poor. It was conceived by Nicolas Rolin, Chancellor of the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, Philippe le Bon and Guigone de Salins. Rolin and the Duke and Duchess were concerned about the devastation caused by the recently ended Hundred Years' War, in which the Dukes of Burgundy had sided with the English against the French crown.

Fontainebleau

Font de Gaume, Dordogne Valley

Entrance to the oldest French Paleolithic cave paintings that are still open to the public.

Chartres

Paris

Strasbourg

Pont du Gard

Bridge and aqueduct built by the Romans in the middle of the First Century of the Common Era, near what is now Nimes, France.