noptek's PhotoBlog

Adam

2013-05-21T22:18:55Z

April 28, 2013 Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929) 1889 Bronze Seven years after Rodin achieved a homonymous statue, Adam is an attempt to follow the same path by Bourdelle.

From Above in Aven Armand

2013-05-22T20:31:53Z

May 05, 2013 The Aven Armand was unexplored for thousands of years. It is one of those pits that inspire terrifying legends and are accused of being devil's throats that swallow up lost travellers and wandering herds. We owe the discovery of this swallow-hole to Louis Armand, who explored it with Edouard Alfred Martel, the pioneer of speleology. Armand worked alongside Louis as an explorer both in France and abroad. On 18 September 1897, at the Hôtel des Voyageurs in Rozier, Louis Armand announced to Martel: "Yesterday when I was going down from the Parade I landed by chance on an master hole. The big stones that I threw down it went a hell of a long way and made an incredible amount of noise." On 19 September, Martel, Viré and Armand arrived on the site with a linge amount of equipment. As Martel described it: "A thousand kilos of ladders, ropes, telephone, camp beds, light cases, clothes, provisions and tools". Armand went down the 75‑metre vertical drop first without encountering any major difficulties. As soon as lie posed his feet on the scree cone, lie cried out "It's huge!" Then he discovered the Forêt Vierge ( Virgin Forest ) and telephoned to Martel: "Mister Martel, it's splendid! There are at least a 100 columns. The biggest must be a good 25 metres high. I have never seen anything like it. Come down and see for yourself". The first expedition lasted for three days and during it they were also able to go 87 metres down a second shaft. Martel declared: "As the cavern didn't have a naine, I immediately decided to call it the Armand swallow-hole." Exploration continued over the following years. During this time, Armand organised private visits for amateurs who weren't afraid of going down the 75‑metre descent. Martel wanted to make Armand the director of a swallow-hole with suitable installations and fittings to receive the public, but was unsuccessful in finding the necessary financing for the project. Then, three years later, two Toulouse entrepreneurs, M. Pin, M. Tondut and M. Paul, finally acquired the lands and necessary planning rights to carry out works to open the swallow-hole to the public. The Aven Armand public limited company was set up on 25 August 1925. The works started on lst June 1926. These were considerable. They included : building a road linking the RN586 route to the Swallowhole entrance, digging a 208 metre long tunnel sloping gently down to main chamber, making a staircase so that people could circulate freely in the cavern and lastly, making paths around the stalagmites, lighting in four different colours. The inauguration of the Swallow-hole’s installations for visitors took place on 11 June 1927. This was thirty years after it's discovery. The monument in honour of Martel and Armand was unveiled on the same day as the inauguration. This monument was erected near the Rozier Bridge in the Mostuéjouls commune.

Karst spring in Florac

2013-05-23T10:18:53Z

May 19, 2013

Pic de Finiels

2013-05-21T00:26:54Z

May 20, 2013

M. Chat

2013-05-17T09:28:16Z

April 24, 26 & 28, 2013 M. Chat (also known as Monsieur Chat and Mr Chat) is the name of a graffiti cat that originally appeared in Orléans, France in 1997. The graffiti appeared most frequently on chimneys, but was also sighted in other places, such as train platforms and at political rallies. The artist was originally anonymous, but in 2007 Thoma Vuille was caught in the act of creating the cat. The yellow cartoon cat is characterized by its large Cheshire Cat grin. The cat is most often portrayed in a running pose, but has also been variously depicted waving signal flags, bouncing on a ball, sporting angel wings, and waving in greeting at the entrance to a train station. It is sometimes accompanied by the tag "M. Chat" in small letters.

Première Victoire d’Hannibal

2013-05-16T20:25:46Z

April 28, 2013 1885 Having arrived in Paris just a year earlier, the twenty-four-year-old Bourdelle submitted the plaster version of Première Victoire d’Hannibal (First Victory of Hannibal) to the Salon of French Artists. The artist depicted a youthful achievement of the future Carthaginian general, as Gustave Flaubert depicted him in Salammbô (1862): despite his young age, Hannibal grasped an eagle, which he suffocated against his chest at the end of a cruel fight. Although he would soon alter its shapes, Bourdelle carefully depicted the episode in this work, attempting to faithfully recreate the eagle’s anatomy as well as the victorious gesture of the young man. Such virtuoso naturalism would earn him a mention honorable at the Salon.

The Dragon Fountain

2013-05-15T19:50:53Z

April 27, 2013 The Water Path begins with the half-moon of the Dragon Fountain which depicts one of the episodes of the legend of Apollo: the Python snake killed by an arrow shot by the young Apollo. The reptile is surrounded by dolphins and Cupids armed with bows and arrows riding on swans. The principal water jet rises twenty-seven metres into the air. On either side of this fountain restored in 1889, paths lead to the two Groves, France Triumphant and the Three Fountains in the west.

Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés

2013-05-14T19:01:00Z

April 25, 2013 The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, just beyond the outskirts of early medieval Paris, was the burial place of Merovingian kings of Neustria. At that time, the Left Bank of Paris was prone to flooding from the Seine, so much of the land could not be built upon and the Abbey stood in the middle of fields, or prés in French, thereby explaining its appellation. The Abbey was founded in the 6th century by the son of Clovis I, Childebert I (ruled 511–558). Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the richest in France; it housed an important scriptorium in the eleventh century and remained a center of intellectual life in the French Catholic church until it was disbanded during the French Revolution. An explosion of saltpetre in storage levelled the Abbey and its cloisters, the statues in the portal were removed and some destroyed, and in a fire in 1794 the library vanished in smoke. The abbey church remains as the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris.

Reflection of a light cube

2013-05-13T21:39:50Z

April 25, 2013

Aerial silk

2013-05-12T20:15:55Z

April 24, 2013