Art and the Mountain
“Les Phonies Bergères” takes place in the Valley D’Aspe every two years. It’s a festival of arts covering music, sculpture, theatre and literature that provides an opportunity for the people of these remote settlements to access, first hand, the works of professional artists and performers of high standing. All festivals, these days, seem obliged to adopt a theme and, this year, with the arrival of the new railway from Bedous to Oloron, the apt choice was Paysage en Mouvement, “moving landscape”. The title enfolds obvious ambiguity. Are we talking about the passage of seasons through the mountain environment or a socio-economic journey? Should we consider the physical changes to the landscape, as in the chemin de fer; the animals and people travelling through; the ecology of the region or, indeed, the passage of time as described by history? The phrase itself - Paysage en mouvement - is triple-edged. Apart from the literal translation, it can be interpreted as Pays sage, meaning “wise land”; or perhaps more challengingly but also highly relevant in todays’s world, Pay sage, which, with a little license, I would translate as “spend wisely". Put these subtleties into the mix and one certainly has the potential to provoke reflection and discussion about the issues affecting this remarkable place in which they live. Getting people to think, however, is no pushover. Obviously, Art cannot do it on its own; It needs a contribution from the audience. For it is the audience that brings the meaning. Oiseaux de Passage by Eleanor Stride. Take Eleanor Stride’s “Birds of Passage”, for example. The V-formation of birds silhouetted against the dramatic background waits inertly for a visitor. First to come, let’s say, is an ornithologist. He is pleased with the acknowledgement of migratory birds and their precarious existence, faced with unnatural incursions into their natural habitat. He is, generally, excited by the sculpture but has one or two minor technical criticisms about wing positions and so forth.
Next to arrive, we might imagine, is a refugee. She remembers her journey across borders. For her the arrow of the of the group might represent direction or ambition. What’s more she notices how one bird takes the tail of another in its beak. The woman understands this as a metaphor for every hand that reached out to guide and support during her in her travels. And then there’s me. The first time I heard le glas - the death knell - a flock of cranes passed overhead. Their cry was so thin and wistful, so dolorous that it will be forever associated with loss. Just outside of the village of Jouers, while the festival was in full swing, I came across a group of pilgrims. The Valley d’Aspe provides one of three routes through the Pyrenees for those following the Chemin de la Compostela which, along with those to Rome and Jerusalem, is one the three great Christian pilgrimages. Terminating at the shrine of St James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, north-western Spain, where the remains of the eponymous apostle are said reside, it rose to importance during the Middle Ages. Today, it is back in fashion and a regular sight hereabouts is that of devotees, some of whom are not Christians at all but those attracted simply by the idea of “pilgrimage” and their own personal, but secular, journey. The travellers I met comprised a little community of four. They were a friendly bunch… a frenchman, working in Germany, accompanied by his german wife and bi-lingual daughter. The fourth member of the party was a french woman who was of no relation except that, some days before, discovering the family exhausted by the side of the road, had offered them a lift in her car. After that, and for whatever reason, she had joined them for part of the trip. Arriving in Jouers as the four members of “The Mystery of the Elephants” were beginning their set, they were treated to a musical performance of vivacity and wit. The group of four bizarrely dressed musicians specialised in a kind of loose jazz based on a fusion of Creole and Oriental, if you know what I mean. It was the kind of music that triggers spontaneous dancing in children under the age of eight and brings all the dogs in the village galloping to see what’s happening. “Was it a complete surprise?” I asked of the Frenchman. “Oh yes,” he replied and, then, after a pause added, “But then you get used to surprises on the journey.”
Pèlerins by Françoise Gracia
It’s a shame, they didn’t see the sculpture created two years previously by Françoise Gracia. Placed, sadly, just above the pilgrims’ path it is destined to go unnoticed by most of those to whom it speaks. One female and one male figure are created in rusting, recycled metal. Their heads are represented as scallop shells, the symbol of St Jacques, and centrally placed between them is the pilgrim’s staff - the object that supports and protects on the long walk. Two hands reach out. The staff is shared. One piece of work my pilgrim acquaintances will find hard to miss, however, is the uprooted pine tree appearing floating above the path. Bare roots suggest that it has been torn from the earth; it’s branches are dying yet it yearns to drift away aided, of course by the galleon sails which, for now at least, reman stowed. The references will not be lost on those familiar with the area as the Chemin de la Mature, the 1 200 metre-long path cut into the rock along a precipitous gorge, is a well-known tourist attraction. The brain child of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, its construction began in the 1660s with the aim providing access to timber growing in the forests above the valley - timber required for the construction of vessels for an expanding navy. In particular, the tall pines had been singled out as especially suitable for masts. (Chemin de la Mature means “way of the mast”.) It was not until the mid 18th century that exploitation reached its peak. During this period one would have seen tree trunks dragged along the path by pairs of bulls yoked to their load. Once in the valley the timber was floated down the River Aspe to the Gave d’Oloron. Further on, they were navigated down the Ardour to the sea at Bayonne. By the end of the century, however, supplies had been exhausted and the Chemin de la Mature lay abandoned until the late twentieth century when walkers and rock climbers replaced beasts of burden. Personally, the sculpture resonates with me, not because of local history but more because of my own experience of seeing, in my home country, trees frequently felled by the
La Chemin de la Mature carved into the sheer cliff
wind, their roots torn from the soil, exposed naked to the world. As a reference to history, though, it’s meaning is reduced, in my opinion, by the tightness of the furled sails and I would have preferred to see some looseness of the fabric, a bit of breeze tugging at the cloth in order to provide a sense of movement. As it is, it suggests too much the Marie Celeste. Not far away, down at the buvette, for many festival goers, it’s a chance to catch up. They may not have engaged with any of the events but, perhaps, they have picked up on the buzz. Others may be discussing a performance they’ve seen or heard. La Buvette, is a bit of an institution in France. Go to any village fete or outdoor event and you will find it, square with a plastic roof, customers crowding three narrow bars which form the sides, while the serveurs bustle within the enclosed space. On the fourth side there will be a barrel of lager, a range of wine boxes and some soft drinks… maybe some coffee, too. So iconic an institution is La Buvette that, as I observe it from the opposite side of La Place, it seems almost an art installation in its own right - an emblem of French life that should be immortalised. Unfortunately, few of the indigenous population attend the festival. The folks who have lived here for generations are bred from a tough stock and aesthetic considerations would have played only a small part in lives where work was all consuming and the fear of disaster in the form of lost animals, failed crops, injuries to person were a constant threat. As in all societies, though, music and dancing were the traditional form of entertainment and, today, it is still common to hear choral signing in native Béarnaise. The songs celebrate life in the mountains particularly the process of finding a spouse and producing children. There’s a lot of wooing and nod,nod,wink,wink hanky-panky going on while the sheep wander off and the maid loses track of why she went to the cool, sparkling spring in the first place! As an Englishman living in France, I find there is one art-form that is sadly missing from my life and that, predictably perhaps, is about gardens. At this time of year we would have been regular visitors at Rosemoor, the RHS garden in Devon, maybe the Chelsea Flower Show and, certainly, at the numerous “open gardens” in Dorset. Here, however, the creation a garden as place of beauty does not seem to be on the agenda. Even the potagers (vegetable gardens) which, thirty years ago, we saw everywhere in the village, have all but disappeared. Alf’s father, I remember, was often to be seen returning from the plot with an armful of vegetables for la garbure, the traditional soup that began each meal. But then, why waste time growing vegetables when you can buy them for a few euros in the supermarket? There are, perhaps, more important things to be doing. Undaunted, however, I set out to see if there was a garden of interest or excellence somewhere in the Pyrenees. Surfing the internet, I discovered that the first weekend of June was ear-marked for Rendezvous Aux Jardins - a nationwide initiative of gardens open to the public, promoted by the Ministry of Culture. The programme for our region of Aquitaine soon became available and I singled out, within striking distance, what seemed to be two likely candidates. The first, in our neighbouring Pays Basque, was billed as a Franco-Anglais fusion where an english style of gardening provided a sympathetic setting for the sculptures of the french artist, Yves-Marie Dumortier. It turned out to be an accurate description. The couple, slightly stressed about taking part in the programme, had done an excellent job. Here, with sensitive planting and thoughtful placement of sculptures and artefacts, was a place where beauty was valued for its own sake.
Artists’ garden in the Pays Basque
After passing an hour or so wandering around the outside we were invited to visit their house. It was a traditional basque home - the facade, the shallow pitch of the roof and the arrangement of windows - a classic! Inside, however, it represented a world that had moved on from the past. Light flooded in through large windows at the sides of the building. A huge, bronzed mirror amplified both the space and the light while reflecting aspects of various sculptures and paintings.
This was an exceptional home created by two individuals with an eye for something beyond the functional. The next stop on our garden tour was the Chateau de Laàs. In terms have scale, at least, it should have been even more impressive but, by the end of our tour, I came away with mixed feelings. I have a thing about the French par terre - the enforced symmetry, the formalisation of nature exemplified by the landscaping at Versailles. Here, though, there was less rigidity with the “French Garden” leading down to a terrace over-looking a bend in the Gave d’Oloron. It was a wonderful surprise - even more so as I imagined the waters from the Cirque de Lescun passing below on their troubled journey to the Atlantic. Interest continued to evolve with the descent to the “Exotic Garden” along paths that dropped ever closer to the river before entering the cathedral-like “Bambooserie”. On the whole, though, the garden was a bit of a hotchpotch with no unifying vision. The attempt at an Italianate garden, for example, was quite frankly a disaster. Beds unfilled or full of weeds and, worse, a hard landscaping in new red brick which had no affinity with its surroundings. Gardens in France, it seems, lag far behind those of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours. In Lescun, for example,I can’t help noticing that the horticultural tool of choice is undoubtedly the strimmer.
Bambooserie at the Chateau de Laàs
Neglect the plot then raze everything to the ground! I suppose it’s just a different way of going about things. There is, of course, a weighty and obvious question suspended above this Art and the Mountain letter: If you are surrounded by beauty do you really need art? Through history, from cave paintings to late Hockney, much of our visual art has found inspiration in the natural world, attempting to represent it in one medium or another. Even in the field of gardening we see the elite designers referencing their work to natural landscapes, attempting to emulate, in their use of plants, how Gardening perfection in the wild? nature puts together different forms, colours and textures in ways that never seem to be wrong. And time after time, especially now at the beginning of June, we come across examples of this high up in the mountains but also in the verges by the side of the road. So, some would say, why bother portraying, in pictures, in words or in music, something that is already perfect? Others might argue that art encourages us to see our surroundings differently - to see them more clearly. Art, they will insist sharpens perceptions and clarifies thought; encourages internal and external dialogues that lead to a better understanding of the world and of our place in it. I tend to subscribe to the latter position. Yet, strangely, today I discovered Nature itself having a go at art. It was neighbour who alerted met to it. “Look,” he kept saying, while pointing up to the Cirque. “An izard!” I didn’t get it at first, but then I saw it. High up near the Pic Bacque was a patch of snow that had thawed into something resembling a five-yearold’s drawing of one of our Pyrenean Chamois. “It happens every year,” he chuckled. “Every year!”
June 11th 2016
Spot the izard!