GOOSE BUMPS

Plaster cast studies of hands at the Musée Rodin Meudon and Balzac's monk's cloak, below, is the spookiest A French Education will ever get, even on the eve of All Saints' Day--All Hallow Even-- Halloween, or as the French call it la veille de Toussaint.

Vocabulary
qui donne la chair de poule:  which gives goosebumps (literally which gives chicken skin)
sinistre:  spooky
quelquechose qui fait froid dans le dos:  something which makes the back cold (literally); spooky

On Halloween in France: The Vandal Had the French Touch, click here.

©2012 P.B. Lecron

ESTHETIC & MORAL

After comparing photos we couldn't help but notice the facial similarities of the plaster cast of Rodin's Jean le Baptiste dating from 1878 in his Meudon studio, above, and that of the saint's head represented a century earlier on the baroque periord redecoration of the façade of the Chapelle des Pénitents Noirs in the former papal city of Avignon, below.

©2012 P.B. Lecron

RODIN'S HOMAGE TO BASTIEN-LEPAGE

En pleine force de l'âge

Talented French naturalist painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), died at the age of 36 and at the height of his career, en pleine force de l'âge. Auguste Rodin sculpted a monumental bronze sculpture of him  commissioned by Bastien-Lepage's hometown, Damvillers in the Lorraine region. This is the model of that sculpture, which is among a collection of Rodin's plasters at the Musée Rodin in Meudon, companion museum to the Paris Musée Rodin. Rodin lived, sculpted and was buried at the Meudon site. 

Between Realism and Impressionism:  Les Foins, painted by Bastien-Lepage in 1877, is on display at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo via Wikicommons.

Vocabulary

en plein force de l'âge:  in the prime of life

un peintre:  a painter

un sculpteur (-trice):  a sculptor

©2012 P.B. Lecron