Notes from the North 6

The title is misleading. I am in Paris having first spent some fine days in an Airbnb in Ghent with bikes provided. Belgium is much ahead of anywhere I’ve been, except perhaps Berlin, for bike use and bike lanes and the bike parks at the train station are a wonder to behold. I took a train from the gare du Nord to Lille then on to Ghent which also gave me plenty of opportunity to see how many houses, or at least those near the train lines, are now using solar power. The route north-south from Edinburgh to London is a solar/PV-panel desert in comparison. 

However, I didn’t take the train to Ghent to ride bikes or study the levels of solar panel use but primarily to see the restored altarpiece painted around 1432 by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck in the cathedral of Saint Bavo. This was something I had promised myself a long time ago but which had been delayed because of covid restrictions and other practicalities. 

 




Eve holding a fruit which is not an apple (for once)



some of the angelic musicians

The lamb at the centre of the polyptych turns out to be quite a small beast. He (the pronoun is deliberate because it has a distinctly male look about it), stands stoutly on his high altar surrounded by fourteen adoring angels. Since the most recent restoration, finished in 2021, he is no longer double-eared as he was for a while in the 1950s, but his gaze is more uncompromising than ever, of a blinding intensity. The whole thing with all its panels, its botanical details, its angels, musicians and horsemen and judges and prophets and townsfolk, is a wonder of artistry and colour to the modern viewer. For a citizen of Ghent in the 15th century those searching eyes together with the stream of crimson blood pouring continuously from the woolly breast, must have been an overwhelming depiction of Christian sacrifice and redemption. The panels were apparently only opened to their full extent on feast days. In that small town of a few thousand inhabitants what an eagerly-awaited celebration that must have been.

 

I am glad to be in Paris while London is turned upside down for the coronation of the oldest king ever crowned in a ceremony which has about as much relevance for the citizenry of the so-called United Kingdom as the polyptych has for the contemporary religious life of Ghent. Paris is upside down too, or large parts of it are. The tarmac has been ripped off all the way up the rue Marx Dormoy revealing the old cobbles. For the next few months the traffic will rumble like it used to do and cyclists will hold tight on their bikes until they reach smoother surfaces. The cobbles will be hidden again by the end of the year and the road should be in splendid order for the 2024 Olympics, the reason for all the chantiers. 

 

There are some signs of the recent protests still stuck on the walls and at the petits déjs in the cour du Maroc there’s a fine collection of colourful posters of last year’s Carnaval. 



bread delivered for breakfast and the géant du Carnaval rises once more


This year’s Carnaval is on 13thMay so I shall not be here to see les géants stride the streets again but there are other wonders to enjoy. I have been twice to the musée d’Orsay, once to see the temporary exhibition of pastels – stunning - 




and a second time to see the less exciting but still interesting Manet et Degas exhibition. At the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne there is a huge exhibition of work: Warhol x Basquiat - à quatre mains, floor after floor of paintings, many of them signed by both artists. 





And I shall take a look inside the Palais de Tokyo at the work of Miriam Cahn, unknown to me until now – 

 

‘Sans sentimentalité ni anecdote faciles, l’artiste dévoile dans son oeuvre l’histoire de sa famille, explore les complexités de ses propres peurs, attentes et désirs et se regarde vieillir. Jour après jour, au sein d’une oeuvre picturale intense qui embrasse aussi le dessin, la photographie, les films, l’écriture, Miriam Cahn met sur pause le flux des images volatiles de l’actualité politique et s’en saisit pour témoigner, résister, incarner.’ 


Since I spend a fair bit of time these days watching myself get old as well as ‘exploring the complexities of my fears, hopes and wishes’ it will be interesting to see how she approaches and interprets those in and for herself.  

 

Meanwhile, despite the continuing destructive behaviour of humankind the earth is still managing to ‘get young again’, as it does every year at this time. On my trips out from Paris to the suburbs I have seen vegetable gardens being carefully prepared for planting and woods carpeted with bluebells. The birds are mating and the lilacs and hawthorn are in full bloom. 




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