Saturday, June 22, 2024

Lille, Roubaix, and a converted swimming pool


It was a grey and dank morning, but off I went to the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, which was everything that you want in a French provincial museum: plenty of weirdness, plenty of things one doesn't know, and a surfeit of C19th salon painting - much of which (and stuff that I saw later in the day - see below) very strongly reminded me of Paths Not Taken - that is, I went to the Courtauld to study C19th French art, which at that time was taught by Anita Brookner, and she, finding that only two people were enrolled for her field in the MA, said No Way.  So back I slid into Romantic and early C19th British for the course work, and C19th Italian for the dissertation ... I'd probably have done the latter, anyway, but my whole career could have been quite different.  

Here's a statue of a skellington (by François Pompon, late C19th) apparently taking a selfie.


And a skull being cradled - Vanité - this by a Flemish artist called Jans Sanders Van Hemessen, c. 1535) by a figure with butterfly wings;


and I rather fell for this wolf, being fed scraps from a butcher's shop, and not doing anyone (including the well fed cat) any harm, because he'd been beatified by St Francis (hence the halo) [Luc-Oliver Merson, Le Loup D'Agubbio, 1878].


And - there's always a discovery to be made - I was rather taken by the paintings of Alfred-Pierre-Joseph Agache, son of a local industrialist - this was in the 1889 Salon.



Then off on a short train trip to Roubaix - with a magnificent town hall (opened 1911) by Victor Laloux, who designed the Gare D'Orsay - bas reliefs of the town's industry round the top - 


and then to an extraordinary museum in a converted Art Deco swimming pool.  I only knew about the setting - the fact that there was a huge collection of C19th Salon paintings here, too - and sculptures, obviously, and ceramics - was a huge bonus.  The changing rooms that flank the pool had all been converted into little display cubicles ...






and yes! by the time I was back in Lille, the sun was out.




 


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