Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Wings: Gifts of Art, Life, and Travel in France is a collection of essays drawn from Byrne’s travels across the country. From Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence to a tiny village in the Jura Mountains, from a neighborhood bistro on the Left Bank of Paris to a plain high above the Normandy beaches, she travels through France collecting stories, characters, tastes, and secrets that act as ingredients for change, then takes those experiences and digs deeper to uncover meaning.
Henri Cartier-Bresson issues a challenge, Sainte Geneviève offers resilience, Salvador Dalí seduces, Picasso entertains, and a wrought iron sign portends the future. Wings is about the gifts that we all glean from our travels. This book will inspire readers to unwrap their own images and impressions in a new way.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609521134 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Travelers' Tales Guides, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 03/29/2016 |
| Pages: | 314 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Erin is the author of Wings: Gifts of Art, Life, and Travel in France, editor of Vignettes & Postcards From Paris, Vignettes & Postcards From Morocco, and writer of The Storykeeper film.
She is an occasional guest instructor at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris and on Deep Travel trips. Her screenplay, Siesta, is in pre-production in Spain, and she is working on the novel, The Red Notebook. You can visit her website at e-byrne.com.
Read an Excerpt
Introduction to Art chapter
THE MYSTIQUE OF ART
When the mind’s eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently...
—Plato, Greek philosopher, 427 - 347 B.C.
The arts offer impressions and images that have been passed on through the ages. From the cave paintings in Lascaux to the thousands of statues that preside over parks, places, and porches, France is drenched in art.
There can exist a loop of meaning from artist to viewer that carries the joy of Kandinsky’s greens and yellows, the sorrow of La Bohème, and the audaciousness of Eiffel’s tower. Michelangelo sculpted his Slaves during years of unceasing labor for pope after pope, often waiting for payment, and to me, the marble captives carry his own desperation. An elderly Renoir strapped paintbrushes to his arthritic hands, and yet his Gabrielle à la Rose has skin soft as a petal. The more we know of the artist—from a prisoner in Ravensbrück who sketched women in a variety of faceless poses to a child who survived a tsunami and drew a picture—the stronger the jolt.
Discovering the personal hero’s journey of the artist can allow a work to inspire something new in the viewer’s life. Edgar Degas created luscious paintings, but also experimented with lithographs and photography. After his death, hundreds of statues were found in his attic, revealing yet another medium mastered. These works, on display in Musée d’Orsay in Paris, urge us all to try something new.
The way we approach art can make us a vibrant part of this flow of electric meaning. We can approach reverently, using some of the aspects of religious pilgrimage. Or we can wander through a gallery attuned to our own inner signals to stop in front of this work or that, as I did once in Museo del Prado in Madrid, and repeatedly “found” the works of the same artist scattered throughout the museum; or we can search for the specific: The Venus de Milo, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Neruda’s Ode to a Lemon.
Travel often inspires artists: Isak Dinesen’s Africa pumped ink through her pen, as did Morocco for Paul Bowles, and both inspired films. New York’s skyline reflects the influence of many an architect’s travels, and choreographer Pina Bausch’s dance themes spanned the globe. It has been said that few photographers ranged so far across the surface of our planet as Henri Cartier-Bresson. “À Propos de Paris” is a story about what he did when he returned to his home, and how he challenged me.
Another challenge, almost the opposite, was given to me from a canvas upon a wall in Musée d’Orsay, which was once a station where trains sparked the rails as they set off on their circuits to the provinces of France and back to Paris. It is still a place of motion and journeys to me. “Eye to Eye with van Gogh” invites you into this vast space, to weave your way through crowds until Vincent’s eye catches yours.
The work of art that has most chiseled its way into my own life is the Greek statue Winged Victory of Samothrace, who has done nothing less than give me her wings. How can a statue give a human such a gift?
I have experienced a process I think of as “the mystique of art”—an on-switch for the live current—in which three essential things occur: First, an artist creates a work that is honest and authentic, with the artist holding nothing back. One can see such an artist operating in this flow—he is the writer whose pen seems to fly, the sculptor who coaxes angels out of marble, and the dancer whose body moves as if by an unseen hand.
Next, the viewer must be receptive to the idea that he may have an unknown need or hunger, and open to the possibility of art touching upon it. Again, the more one knows about the artist and the work, the better.
Finally, the timing must be right, the stars, as they say, aligned, to position the person in front of this work of art. One must seize, as Cartier-Bresson would say, The Decisive Moment, and follow the magnetic pull, the trail of breadcrumbs, or our own inner compass that leads us there. We find ourselves facing something that causes a frisson: the visceral, physical reaction we humans have when we are truly touched, a thrilling shiver, a tingling shudder, chills, or goose bumps.
When these three conditions are met, this mystique of art just happens. It can occur with all of us—you, me, a Harvard doctoral candidate, a world leader, or a five-year-old. A case could be made that the five-year-old has more open channels along which to receive these gifts, thus has an advantage over all of us—if you doubt this, keep your eyes peeled next time you are near a child who is mesmerized by a statue or a painting.
“Winged Victory” is the story of how this mystique of art occurred and the statue’s spirit entered my bloodstream.
If it can happen to me, it can happen to you. But, images in a book are not the same as the real works, so after you read these stories, I invite you to venture out, follow your fascination with an artist or a branch of the arts, and find a masterpiece to let your mind’s eye rest upon.
Catch the live current of art.
Table of Contents
Introduction1. Les Deux Garçons
Two Boys and a Bistro
Day Dreamer
Coasting Beyond Boyhood
2. Characters
The Rarest of Editions
Dear Madame Renaud
Don’t Think, A Message From Henri Cartier-Bresson
3. Tastes of Place
The Taste of This Place
A Rare Blend
Jurassic Cheese
4. Connections
French Connections
Vignettes & Postcards From Paris
Vincent’s Vision
5. The Mystique of Art
À Propos de Paris
Eye to Eye with van Gogh
Winged Victory
6. The Storykeeper
Mentalité Terrible
The Boy and His Shield
Storykeepers
7. Transformations
Bastille Day on the Palouse
Avé Métro
Deep Travel, Notre Dame
8. Secrets
The Secret of It
The Mirror of Montmartre
Wise Beams
9. Signs
In Vincent’s Footsteps
Signs
Duende in the Louvre
10. Belonging
Cézanne’s Salon des Refusés
Reconnaissance: Seeking Sainte Geneviève
Now, Fly
Publications and Awards
Acknowledgments