RUINES
Exhibitions and research projects in Paris and Geneva, fine books, literary texts: RUINES are in the spotlight at the Bibliothèque cantonale universitaire de Lausanne, site Unithèque. Following the random declination of this post dedicated to RUINES, let’s begin our odyssey with a few literary memories…
Literature
Joachim Du Bellay
Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560) brought back a collection of sonnets from his Italian trip between 1553 and 1557, The Antiquities of RomeMeditations on the ruins, admiration for Latin grandeur and melancholy over the annihilation of ancient Rome punctuate the work.
“Newcomer who seeks Rome in Rome
The Antiquities of Rome, 1558, extract
And nothing of Rome in Rome apperçois,
These old palaces, these old arches which you see,
And these old walls, it is what Rome one names.
See what pride, what ruin, and like
That which mist the world under its laws
To give all, gave itself sometimes,
And became proye with time which all consumes.”
Chateaubriand
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) made his first trip to Italy between May 1803 and January 1804. The peninsula had already been a prestigious destination since the 17th century, and his stay there, a veritable romantic and cultural quest for the pleasure of the picturesque, inspired him to write Journey to Italy. The author’s vision of beauty is marked by the sign of decline: it evokes a time that is disappearing, dissolving… into ruins.
“A fragment suddenly detached from the vault of the Library rolled at my feet, as I passed: a little dust rose, a few plants were torn and dragged along in its fall. The plants will be reborn tomorrow; the noise and dust dissipated instantly: here is this new debris lying for centuries next to those who seemed to be waiting for it. This is how empires plunge into eternity, where they lie silent.
Journey to Italy, 1827, excerpt
Stendhal
Henri Beyle (1783-1842), known by his pseudonym Stendhal, was also a great lover of Italy. He even wrote a book entitled Histoire de la peinture en Italie. He traveled extensively throughout the country. He was particularly moved by his visit to the Colosseum in Rome, which inspired him to write: “Initiation to beauty and the quest for the pleasure of seeing and feeling:
“Rome, August 17th. – How many happy mornings I have spent at the Coliseum, lost in some corner of these immense ruins […] The peaceful chirping of birds, echoing faintly in this vast edifice, and from time to time, the profound silence that follows, undoubtedly help the imagination to fly away into ancient times. One arrives at the most vivid pleasures that memory can provide!”
Walks in Rome, 1829, excerpt
Exhibitions
In 2020, two photographic exhibitions evoke RUINES: the physical ones that dot the Mediterranean rim.
Koudelka
In Paris, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), an exhibition entitled Josef Koudelka. Ruins . Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Algeria are among the 19 countries to be discovered through the lens of the Czech photographer. His work reveals “the chaotic beauty of ruins, the remains of monuments transformed by time, nature, the hand of man and the disasters of history”. In parallel, BnF offers us a blog post and a Gallicarte inviting us on a virtual journey.
Boissonnas
In Geneva, the Musée Rath is hosting an exhibition entitled Fred Boissonnas and the Mediterranean. A photographic odyssey from September 25, 2020 to January 31, 2021. “In search of light, of Magna Graecia and independent Egypt, of Homeric places and biblical landscapes”, the Geneva-based photographer also invites us on a beautiful journey. Indeed, landscape photography made Fred Boissonnas (1858-1946) famous. Visit the Geneva Digital Library to discover all the facets of his work.
Universities
While universities can also examine the poetics of RUINES in literature, for example, there are fields where RUINES are an object of study in their own right: archaeology and geography.
Paris Sorbonne
In Paris, a research seminar devoted to the links between archaeology and photography is attempting to define a new disciplinary field in contemporary archaeology: photographic archives. Various sites are studied or presented, such as the sanctuary of Apollo at Délos (Greece) through digital and 3D reconstructions, and the site of Ebolie (Campania, Italy). As for Susa (Iraq), illustrations of excavation methods and the daily life of archaeological missions are also presented. Finally, major French sites such as Alise Sainte Reine (Alésia) and Arcy-sur-Cure (Palaeolithic cave) complete this picture of current research.
University of Geneva
At the University of Geneva, a project funded by the Swiss National ScienceFoundation (SNSF) is also examining photography in the field of antiquity: Ulysses. Reimagining the Mediterranean: from myth to photography . Focusing in particular on Fred Boissonnas and Victor Bérard’s 1912 voyage in the footsteps of Ulysses, this project has a public component, the Musée Rath exhibition also presented in this post. But more than a “text-landscape” confrontation, this research also raises questions about the notion of geographical imagination, the possible relationship between geography and fiction, and the history of geography and its methods.
From the Lausanne Cantonal University Library
If I had to choose just three titles from all the selected works on the subject of RUINS (and antiquity – my collection), I’d mention the exhibition catalogs by Koudelka and Boissonnas, mentioned above, andAlain Schnapp‘s A History of Ruins, all three published this year.
The BCULausanne’s Réserve précieuse contains a number of treasures, and many of the works in our selection are kept there for you to consult on site! Here you’ll find publications by Fred Boissonnas, including En Grèce par monts et par vaux (1910) and L’Epire, berceau des Grecs (1920).
William Gell’s Vues des ruines de Pompeï (1827) is another precious work, but it can also be consulted online, thanks to the digitization project in which BCULausanne is participating. For the record, William Gell’s unpublished drawings of Pompeii have recently been identified and published in a book that you will also find on our shelves. Our selection of books on RUINES also focuses on art history and such great names as Louis-François Cassas, Piranèse and Hubert Robert.
RUINES may seem a “sad” subject, but let’s at least remember the poetry they stimulate in some, the aesthetic beauty evoked by others, and let’s try to build an inspiring future on the remains of theannus horribilis 2020.
Evelyne Barman Crotti, Unithèque website
