As we continue adding websites to our del.ici.ous collection of bookmarks, we want to keep you informed of our favorite recent additions, organized by subject:

Fine Arts

Bruce Nauman Leave the Land Alone: Documentation of Bruce Nauman’s performance of Untitled (Leave the Land Alone), 1969/2009.

The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated: A Library of Congress exhibition documenting the work of photographer to the Tsar Sergei Mikhailovich Prokrudin-Gorskii.

French National Library’s Image Bank: A searchable collection of digital materials from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture: Website for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Vézelay: Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine: A searchable collection of digital images of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay, photographed by Alison Stones, and cataloged by the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh.

Architecture/ Design

Arch Daily: An the online source of continuous information for a growing community of thousands of architects searching for the latest architectural news: projects, products, events, interviews and competitions among others.

E. A. Seguy’s Butterflies: A digital collection of Seguy’s collotypes from the New York Public Library.

Environmental Design Archives: Gertrude Jekyll: Archival material from the University of California at Berkeley. The Jekyll collection includes presentation drawings, planting plans, plant lists, surveys, photographs, and correspondence relating to residential gardens throughout the United Kingdom.

Plastics Network: Website of an international collaborative project to promote an understanding of the study of plastics and design.

Tom Eckersley Poster Archive: A collection of digital images of Eckersley’s posters hosted by the Visual Arts Data Service, VADS, created from the artist’s archive at the University of the Arts in London.

Liberal Arts

American Treasures of the Library of Congress: Online exhibition displaying some 250 items from the Library of Congress collections, including some not currently on permanent display. The organizing principles of this exhibition are Memory, Reason and Imagination.

Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database: “The Literature, Arts, & Medicine Database is an annotated multimedia listing of prose, poetry, film, video and art that was developed to be a resource for teaching and research in MEDICAL HUMANITIES, and for use in health/pre-health, graduate and undergraduate liberal arts and social science settings.”

Transatlantic Slave Trade Database Images: A collection of images of places and vessels involved in the Transatlantic Slave trade, as well as slave portraits. This collection is part of the Voyages database project, which has collected archival data from all over the world to create an invaluable resource for scholars of the slave trade.

Van Gogh: The Letters: A project of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, offering all 902 letters to and from Van Gogh in digital format, with scans of the originals, transcripts and annotations.

Voice of the Shuttle – Cultural Studies: Voice of the Shuttle (VoS) is a subject gateway for humanities and humanities-related resources on the Internet.

Museums

Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity: MoMA exhibition displaying “over 400 works by some 100 Bauhaus teachers and students that reflect the extraordinarily broad range of the school’s output.”

New Ceramics Galleries, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: “Purpose built in 1909 for the display of the Ceramics collection the newly refurbished galleries tell the story of world ceramics, with 3000 objects on display from the earliest Chinese pottery to contemporary ceramic art.”

RISD Museum: The Brilliant Line: An exhibition of engravings from the Early Modern period.

Reunion des Musees Nationaux: A digital collection of art images from French museums.

The Virtual Museum of Iraq: Online exhibition of objects from Iraqi museums created by the Italian National Research Council.

In 1037 a new abbot was elected at Vézelay abbey in Burgundy. Abbot Geoffroy brought with him the Cluniac reform of the Benedictine order and the cult of Mary Magdalene. Miracles began to take place and soon large numbers of pilgrims began to attend. Within a short period of time it was declared that the actual relics of the saint existed in the crypt of the abbey.

Given that there was an established cult of Mary Magdalene’s relics at Ephesus and that there seemed no previously recorded account of how the relics had reached the Burgundian abbey, his claim was contentious.

Geoffroy himself, acknowledged this, writing that “Many have wondered how it was possible that the body of Saint Mary Magdalene, who was born in Judea, was brought to Gaul from such a distant region”. He justified his claim on the grounds that all things were possible for God and furthermore, sceptics had been punished while those who had confessed their doubt had been rewarded with salvation by Mary Magdalene’s intercession. In 1058 the relics were given the Papal seal of authenticity.

With the claim to possession of her mortal remains beyond dispute, the abbey grew to become one of the major pilgrimage shrines of medieval Europe.

By the end of the century one of the largest churches in Christendom stood over the simple crypt.

There are a number of legendary narratives which tell of how the relics reached Vézelay. The stories overlap and the names of the protagonists vary, however two key figures emerge, a monk named Badilon and the original ninth century founder of the abbey, Count Girart de Roussillon.

The oldest account features Badilon, who in the ninth century had taken refuge at Vézelay from the nearby monastery of Saint Martin at Autun which had been raided by Visigoths from southern France. At some point he had travelled to the Holy Land and on his return had acquired the relics of the saint at Constantinople .

The secondary tradition names Girart de Roussillon and his wife Berthe as the principal figures  These were the founders of two abbeys in Burgundy at Vézelay and Pothières.

They acquired quasi-sanctification via a Latin hagiography entitled the Vita Girardi and were buried at Pothières.

The epic vernacular poem the Chanson de Girart de Roussillon  which deals with the rivalry between Girart and the emperor Charles the Bald, provided a variation on the legend.

The relics of Mary Magdalene were passed to Girart by a pilgrim named Guintrant who had been incarcerated for fifteen years while in the Holy Land and miraculously released at which point God had placed the saintly relics in his care.

Both of these traditions included variants which took account of the legend that held that Mary Magdalene had travelled by ship from the Holy Land to Marseille in the company of her brother and sister, Lazarus and Martha and a company of seventy-two disciples.

In Provence, she lived the life of a hermit and on her death had been buried at Aix by Maximinus one of those who had accompanied her from Palestine and had now become the city’s first bishop.

Unlike the rest of France, Provence had suffered from a continued Saracen presence during the eight and ninth centuries.

This was therefore fertile ground for the epic poets of the Chansons de Geste of the twelfth century whose tales of heroic deeds by Frankish warriors against the Moors in Provence possessed the quality of proto-Crusades.

The relics of Mary-Magdalene were considered at risk and were rescued in clandestine operations in a number of seperate accounts.  In one  of these the two traditions come together when we learn that Girart  de Roussillon sent a monk named Badilon to retrieve the relics from Aix and bring them safely to Vézelay.

That the relics of Mary Magdalene’s brother Lazarus had been translated to Autun in 972 would certainly have lent the Provencal tradition a greater degree of substance.

Any doubts which abbot Geoffroy may have entertained would have been dispelled when one Saturday after Matins, as he placed the cover over the relics, a vision appeared to him of a woman who seemed to say to him ,“I am she who is thought by many to be here”.

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On a lonely hilltop in Burgundy stands one of the most hallowed sites of the medieval world: the shrine of Mary Magdalene.

It was here that pilgrims came to venerate one of the greatest saints of the middle ages and it was the foutainhead of one of the four great pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela.

Here also, Bernard of Clairvaux called for the Second Crusade before a massive assembly of the French aristocracy in 1145. In 1166 Thomas à Beckett used Vézelay as the place to deliver his sermon threatening the English king, Henry II with excommunication and later in 1190, Richard the Lionheart met his French counterpart Philip Augustus to plan the Third Crusade.

Vézelay’s role as a centre of pilgrimage goes back to prehistory and is associated with a salt water spring, known  today as Les Fontaines Salées. Funerary urns dating back to 900 BC have been found there as well as the ruins of a very substantial Gallo-Roman sanctuary which incorporated a large circular temple and thermal baths. Ex-votos of the grateful recipients of miracle cures abound and two adjacent necropolises indicate that this sacred fountain was an important religious site where Gallic deities such as Belisande and Taranis were worshipped alongside Roman ones.

In the ninth century one of the most eminent Carolingian vassals, Girart Count of Vienne, known also as Girart de Roussillon acquired the lands of of the villa known as Vercellacus by the banks of the river Cure, whose domains included the sacred spring of the Fontaines Salées.

There, Girart established a convent. The relics of two roman martyrs Eusebius and Pontius were donated by Pope Nicholas 1st. These were borne in triumphal procession from Lyon along with the relics of two more local saints Andeol and Ostian. The relics of Pontius and Andeol were taken to Vézelay, those of Eusebius and Ostian went to nearby Pothières where Girart had founded another monastery. With the destruction of the abbey buildings at Vézelay by Norman raiders, the establishment was moved to the summit of the hill which overlooked the river valley and converted into a monastery. The Pope personally dedicated the new abbey to Notre-Dame in 879.

By the eleventh century a cult of Mary Magdalene began to develop at Vézelay. Miracles occurred and her memory was venerated at an altar which stood over a modest burial chamber. The rumour began to grow that this small crypt actually contained Mary Magdalene’s relics. On 6th March 1058 abbot Hugh of Cluny declared recognition of the authenticity of the relics and at the same time, bringing Vézelay into the Cluniac order.

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Mary Magdalene was the medieval world’s most emblematic saint. However it wasn’t  until the sixth century that the saint assumed a specific identity and subsequently an important role in Christian theology.

It was Pope Gregory the Great who consolidated under a single identity three seperate women of the Gospel texts. Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus he identified as the same woman named Mary Magdalene  discoverer of the empty tomb after the Crucifixion and first witness to the Resurrection.

Unifying these with the nameless woman condemned as a sinner by Simon the pharisee and redeemed by the act of washing the feet of Christ with her tears, an immensely potent figure was created.

“Noli me tangere – do not touch me for I am not yet ascended to my father”, these were the celebrated words ascribed to Jesus when Mary Magdalene came upon him after finding his tomb empty.

Mary Magdalene was both the archetypal sinner redeemed and through her devotion a symbol for nothing less than the Christian Church. She was known as the Apostle to the Apostles.

In the eleventh century the Benedictine abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy declared possession of her relics. This was a contentious claim since the legend of Mary Magdalene told of her journey after the Pentecost from Palestine to Provence, where she had ended her days as a hermit. In order to justify the presence of her relics at Vézelay the legend was  embellished further by the involvement of one of the heroes of the epic Chansons de Geste, Girart  Comte de Roussillon.

Girart had founded the abbey at Vézelay in the ninth century. The new account told of how he had brought with him Mary Magdalene’s mortal remains in order to preserve them from the hands of the Saracens who were then ravaging Provence..

The abbey’s claim to possess the relics was endorsed by papal confirmation in 1058. The massive size of the church at Vézelay is an indication of the large numbers of pilgrims who came to Vézelay in hope of miraculous cures and the remission of their sins.

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The depiction of the elect residing in the bosom of Abraham is an essential theme in Romanesque sculpture and occurs as part of the large scale representations of Judgment at Moissac,  Conques and Arles.

The parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke’s Gospel Chapter 16 is the only Biblical source for this vital component of the medieval conception of the eschatological scheme.

One of the capitals in the nave of the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay is of the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man.

It is represented in its most detailed version on the left hand side of the porch of the Cluniac abbey of Saint-Pierre-de-Moissac. The parable recounts the tale of a rich man who refused the crumbs of his table to a leprous beggar named Lazarus who is reduced to having his sores licked by a dog. Lazarus dies and is carried by angels into the bosom of Abraham.

When the rich man dies he is buried and is sent to hell where he can see Lazarus far above. He calls out to Abraham to send Lazarus to him to assuage the pain of his torments. Abraham responds that the gulf between them is too wide and cannot be crossed. The rich man then beseeches Abraham to send Lazarus to plead on behalf of his brother so that they might be spared the pain of hell, but again Abraham refuses.

There was a long exegetical tradition on the subject of the parable and each second Sunday after Pentecost it was selected as the Gospel passage when it was noted that Lazarus has been given a name because he appears in the Book of Life whereas the unnamed Rich Man does not. Furthermore, the dog who licks Lazarus’ leprous wounds is symbolic of the priestly caste.

In Matthew’s Gospel 8, 11, Jesus proclaims that the elect would sit next to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is presented on the lintel beneath the Apocalyptic tympanum of the western facade of the cathedral of Saint Trophime at Arles.

At the Benedictine abbey of Conques there is a large detailed porch sculpture of the Last Judgment. It could be said to represent the whole of the twelfth century Benedictine view of the Afterlife. The sculpture is characterised by geometric lines which describe a hierarchical structure and bear inscriptions describing the scenes contained within.

Christ in Majesty is surrounded by Heaven and Hell. The Dead arise from their tombs and the Souls of the Dead are Weighed. The Saint of Conques, Sainte Foy is in an attitude of intercessory prayer while one man is delivered into the Jaws of Hell and another is saved by the saint’s intercessory prayer. Paradise is divided in two. The higher register includes the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter as well as a number of saints and below is the Bosom of Abraham.

The Conques tympanum seems to present a telescoping of eschatological time so that the present and the future appear in the same image. The Bosom of Abraham is an ante chamber to Paradise, where only the Saints are admitted before the End of Time. The inscription, “The chaste, the peacemakers, the meek, the friends of piety, thus they stand rejoicing, secure with no fear”.

This implies that their ultimate place in Paradise is assured.

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I can’t get enough of watching these videos on YouTube lately. Also, the guy who made this also wrote some pretty cool songs.

Après 1 mois d’absence sur mon Blog, je reviens en force avec un reportage photos concernant un périple moto que je viens de vivre avec 7 autres Bikers .

Du 2 au 6 juillet , nous avons roulé entre Paris entre Paris , Vézelay , Clermont Ferrand , Thiers , Besançon avec 2 groupes de Motards qui  nous sommes tous retrouvés en Auvergne dans la superbe Auberge de Mazayes .

Ce fût 3 jours de rigolade , de belles ballades sur des motos rutilantes, de repas Auvergnats ( croûte de Saint Nectaire, Potée Auvergnate, Punti aux Pruneaux, Truffade,…..), de bons cigares et de bonnes bouteilles !

Vous pouvez découvrir toute notre superbe ballade sur le  site de  Mobile.Me (Apple).

Denis

chaleur

Chaleur, d’après une photo, Vézelay. Acrylique par Christiane

Chaleur, feutre, pastels solubles a l’eau, par Bénédicte

Printemps, aquarelle par Marie-Hélène.

Institute of Philosophical Practice (Institut de Pratiques Philosophiques)
4th Summer Seminar “The art of questioning” in France (in english)

The Institute of Philosophical Practice is organizing its fourth international annual summer seminar in English on “The art of questioning”, led by Oscar Brenifier. Like every year, it will gather participants from numerous contries and take place in a small village of Burgundy, close to the medieval city of Vezelay. The duration will be one whole week, from July 13th to 19th 2009, and the cost will be 500 EUR, including the workshops, food and accommodation in a private room. For people who are on a tight budget, this can be reduced to 300 EUR if you accept “camping style” accommodation. Our Institute can accept some people free of charge who have financial difficulties, but are highly motivated.

Practicing philosophers who wish to present their methodology (academic or popular) during the seminar are invited to send their proposal.

For more information : alcofrib@club-internet.fr

cease-living (Clic para descargar Documento de 23 págs. en inglés)

The beefy smell of pumpkin soup and wood smoke nudged its way into the night air. It was just before Vespers, or evening prayers, and the village began to lock up, settling down, lights going out one by one like fireflies on a summer night. Only the kitchen lights shone out over the cobblestone street, as mothers and wives, widows and widowers, fathers and husbands, ladled their evening broth over thick crusts of stale bread and grated Gruyère cheese on top.

Photo credit: C. Bertelsen

A peasant meal, eaten in one form or another for centuries. And now pumpkin,  at least since Christopher Columbus clambered onto the Santa Maria and brought back pumpkins and other squashes from the New World.

An occasional headlight cast an incongruous shadow through the narrow outer door onto the stone walls reaching nearly 50 feet above my head. I sat on a long narrow bench, in relative darkness, alone. Stamping my feet on the stone floor, I glanced around me again, marveling that not another soul breathed with me in the great narthex of the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene. Built in the 12th century in Romanesque style, gray, square, and foreboding, it sits high on a hill overlooking tranquil Burgundian wine country and the village of Vezelay, France.

Eager to be rid of the numbing coldness running up my legs, I jiggled my feet again and stood up quickly. In the shadows, tiny holes — like pockmarks cratering the faces of long-dead pilgrims suffering from smallpox — indented the surface of each square of stone in the floor. Light from the sunset suddenly blazed through the stained-glass windows, cascading over the faceless statues carved into the enormous tympanum above the arched double doors, leading into the pilgrimage sanctuary. Irate villagers smashed the features off most of the faces during the French Revolution of 1789. Or they completely removed their heads, a telling act at a time when the guillotine ruled.

Photo credit: C. Bertelsen

His nose gone, Christ stands in the center of the multitude of figures, his robes swirling like the trajectory of stars in Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” paintings.

The odor of pumpkin soup, laced with the medieval hint of nutmeg, lured me out into the street. I followed the scent to a small café across from the church.

The waiter sensed my hunger and settled me into a chair near the window overlooking church of the faceless saints.

Soon a bowl of orange-colored soup steamed beneath my nose.

I ate, but the pamphlets in my backpack played with my mind. St Bernard of Clairvaux called for the Second Crusade, right there in Vezelay, on a hillside just beyond the city walls.  An act that reverberates throughout our world yet to this day.

History, in the mouth and everywhere …

(For more on the history of pumpkins, see my post, “A Meditation on Pumpkin Pie.”

Here’s a visual rendition of Soupe au Potiron (you might want to turn the music off or at least lower the volume!):

and a recipe, too …

La Soupe au Potiron (Pumpkin Soup in a Pumpkin)

1 7-lb rouge vif d’Etampes, or Cinderella pumpkin
7 T. butter
Salt
1 large yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 ½ cups fresh white bread crumbs, toasted
½ t. ground nutmeg
½ t. ground sage
Pepper
½ cup grated Swiss cheese
4 cup vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
½ cup heavy cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cut a 4″ lid out of the pumpkin.  Remove and discard
seeds and string.  Rub inside of pumpkin with 1 Tbsp. salted butter, season
with salt, and place on a baking pan.

Melt remaining butter in a skillet over low heat.  Add onions and cook until
soft, about 10 minutes.  Stir in bread crumbs and cook for 2 minutes.  Add
nutmeg and sage, and season generously with salt and pepper.  Remove from
heat, stir in cheese, and spoon mixture into pumpkin.  Add enough stock to
fill pumpkin to within 1/2″ of the rim.  Put bay leaves on top, and then
replace pumpkin lid.

Bake until pumpkin begins to soften and brown on the outside and the stock
bubbles inside, about 1 1/2 hours.  Remove from oven and transfer to a serving
platter.  Scrape flesh from bottom and sides of pumpkin with a spoon.
Just before serving, stir in heavy cream if desired.

(From Saveur magazine, November 1998, page 136)

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Bonjour et bienvenue à tous sur Chai89 le blog des vins de l’Yonne. Nous essaierons dans cette espace de créer un lieu de rencontre pour ceux qui font le vins de l’Yonne, vignerons, distributeurs, restaurateurs ou simple amateur.
N’hésitez pas à nous écrire, c’est nos contributions qui ferons l’intérêt et le succès de ce blog.

chai89@epineuil.eu

Stéphane

Waarschijnlijk het meest belangrijke van mijn tocht heb ik nog niet aangehaald: de route die ik zal volgen!

Eerst volg ik de GR 12 (Amsterdam-Parijs) om zo in Brussel aan te komen. Daar neem ik de GR 126 tot in Namen.

Vervolgens neem ik in Namen de GR 654 naar het historisch vertrekpunt Vézelay en blijf zo de GR 654 volgen tot in Montréal en daar verandert de route in de GR 65 en zo op naar de Spaanse grens.

In Spanje zal ik de Camino Francés volgen.

Misschien kan dit een tip zijn, ik heb in m’n routeboekjes ringetjes laten schieten. Veel handiger om ze open te leggen!