The other
day, last Monday, I walked along part of the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, from
rue Royale to the Elysée Palace. This part of the street is where you find a
number of 18th century palaces, some of them now embassy residences
(Japan, U.S.A, United Kingdom…), and also some other mostly rather ancient
buildings.
It was
obviously in fashion to decorate older buildings by “mascarons”, often
grotesque faces. Paris is full of them, so we should take the ones I will show
just as examples. They are “everywhere” in Paris.
However,
when there are female faces, they are hardly grotesque, rather nice and
friendly looking. Why? :-)
The top
picture shows what you can find on top of the official entrance gate to the
Elysée Palace. There is a female face… I haven’t been able to find out when
this was made. Is it supposed to represent “Marianne” or is it older…? It can
hardly be the “Madame de Pompadour”, who resided here during the reign of Louis
XV? The RF stands of course for the French Republic which “Madame de Pompadour”
never experienced.
There are
tens of "mascarons" on the Elysée Palace facade, but they all seem to be the same,
alternatively one grotesque man and a smiling lady.
The Palace
is as we know now occupied by the French President, today Emmanuel Macron. The
day I passed by Mr. Macron was preparing his speech to try to calm down the present
rebellious movements and a number of journalists watched…
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6 comments:
Que de deux médaillons !
Quand à Macron...
Troubled times in your part of the world, Peter. Well, everywhere, I know. After all the political corruption here, I think I'm longing for the good old days where people complained about taxes, wages, gasoline and more. Oh, we still complain about those but not aggressively. Perhaps with good reason...
I loved these -- they're quite beautiful (at least the women; the men -- fierce!) A very interesting post!
Some of the male figures look like Green Men. There are some excellent Green Men carvings in the cathedral at Bayeux, along with fabulous Mascarons. Thanks for this post. I’m saving it for sure!
Love this post....thank you for the photos. I have a fascination for these carved stone faces and collect photos of them. With regard to why the females so smiley......Maybe it's to do with the French male love of the female form!!!
Ay ay ay, I hope those masks do not scare the residents of that place...
What impresses me is the state those works of art are in, after centuries...
Not bad, IMHO.
Ah...the European continent having its problems...
Meanwhile, in the year 2015, in a country of the American continent, ("the paradise of health care") a Nobel Prize-winning citizen had to sell his gold medal to pay his health bills...
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/physicist-leon-ledermans-nobel-prize-goes-auction-block-n365671
P.S.
Top price for a Nobel Prize auction was set in 2014, when another USA citizen, James Watson — the biologist who played a key role in deciphering DNA's double helix — sold his 1962 gold medal for $4.7 million. (The buyer, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, gave the medal back to Watson.)
I find these Stone carved faces a “...indefinable element of beauty […] having that "obscure and mysterious element” (Baudelaire 132).
Love them all glad they have survived wars and other tribulations of French life.
Thank you Peter for posting these works of art.
The French President Emmanuel Macron will have to make many speeches and other compensations to quell the rebelling public.
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