Heads up

photo Denis Gliksman, Inrap

The tomb of a Celtic prince dating from the 5th century BC was recently discovered in the Champagne region of France.

I haven't made any such monumental discoveries but

do seem to keep coming across interesting faces these days.

photo: Le style et la matière

Foire de Chatou

quot capita, tot sensus

"So many heads, so many opinions," said Terrence.

photo: Le style et la matière
Foire de Chatou

And Youtube says that cats will change your outlook. 

I hear that in the US, Uber  delivers kittens like call-girls or clowns to offices 

for entertainment between 12 and 4pm. Am I the only one to find that unpleasantly odd?
Cats at your service?

photo: Le style et la matière
Musée de Cluny

 A regretful monster squelched under the unrelentingly firm hold of
St Margaret's foot in a painted panel of the saint from the 13th century.

photo: Le style et la matière
Musée de Cluny

Carvings of the kings of Judah were from the facade of Notre Dame de Paris c.1220.

These statuary heads served as foundation filler for post-revolutionary construction. 

photo: Le style et la matière
Musée de Cluny

Sable from the Middle Ages;
its handsome coat aside, the marten has an expressive face.

photo: Le style et la matière

Musée de Cluny

Rock crystal lions

photo: Le style et la matière
Musée de Cluny

A child's moony face carved in
chalcedony from 2nd century Rome.

photo: Le style et la matière
Musée de Cluny

Reliquary busts

photo: Le style et la matière
The holy family c.1500 Alsace
Musée de Cluny

Tu m'as fait tourner la tête....
Gentle, dear!

And as silly as it might be, all this relative roundness has me humming
"Mon manège à moi"

Tiroirs secrets

high tech desk from 1781 by David Roentgen

I have not yet been able to pop over to Versailles to see the design exhibit that is showing until February 22, but I will Soon! 

In case you haven't seen it either, I've found this two minute video to be a beautiul demontration of the architecture and efficency of a very fine 18th century desk. A demo that would be silent if not for the  doors and drawers and other movable parts that click and slide crisply into position at the biding of  gloved hands. The desk is by the German cabinetmaker, master of marquetry and mechanisms, David Roentgen, who worked a great deal for the French court.

This is just a  foretaste of  the exhibit 18th Century aux sources du Design at Versailles where works of decorative art are taken out of context to be appreciated as museographical specimens - jewels on pedestals - but as often as possible no longer monolithic and static. Instead they are up for analysis and finally reveal their proud secrets through a play of mirrors, neon lighting and documentary films.

More than one leg to stand on... and the etymological source of  "design."

For me, the French word dessein has always been the equivilant of design, 
but it is the English expression (derived from the French in the 16th century) that is used today to get across in a flash the more modern conception of the not so recent idea,
The idea, namely, that there is a skilled author and craftsman behind the desirable designed object and that that object contains a quality of innovation, of being up-to-date. That is an aspect that is hard to grasp when looking back through history. When it is done, it is often with condescension.
Remember, no one who was interested in decoration in the 18th century wanted to hang on to Grandfather's old furniture. Antiques were from the antique world - Greece and Rome.

 Photo RMN-Grand Palais Château de Versailles/Christophe Fouin
Commode André-Charles Boulle, 1708

Architect Jean Nouvel was invited to provide his own modern point of view with 

commentaries that punctuate the exhibit.

screen cap from Hack King's Design, a 
design contest associated with the exhibit

So often, the ancients and the moderns are in opposing camps.

 Today's designers should be able to study these ancient constructions differently - 

with the very definition of Respect = 

to look back at something to better consider what is in the present.

for more on the exhibit see: château de Versailles

another video:  Louis XV's desk , here

Fill in the blank

photo from: interiors inside out
Vanity Olympia by Nika Zupanc

To proceed with filling in the blank...

 sit before the table.

Picasso Girl before the Mirror

What is a face really? 

Its own photo? 

Its makeup? 

Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter?

That which is in front? 

Inside? 

Behind? 

And the rest? 

Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? 

Deformations simply do not exist.

 Pablo Picasso