Patrimoine
Définition donnée par l’UNESCO:
<<Le patrimoine est l’héritage du passé dont nous profitons aujourd’hui et que nous transmettons aux générations futures. Nos patrimoines culturels et naturels sont deux sources irremplaçables de vie et d’inspiration>>.
Définition donnée par la Documentation francaise:
<<Ensemble des éléments matériels ou immatériels d’ordre culturel, chargés de significations multiples, à dimension collective et transmis de génération en génération>>.
This weekend all the cities in Europe are celebrating their cultural heritage by opening all their museums, churches, and monuments to the public, free of charge. I don’t know how other European cities are celebrating their days of artistic and cultural heritage, but here on the Côte d’Azur many of the cities provided an itinerary of activities scheduled by each of their places of heritage. In Antibes, the museums and monuments are providing guided tours; special presentations on history or on art techniques; historical discussions; special commentaries on specific collections; etc., etc. So far, it seems to be very successful, as there were long lines of people at each event today. We ran into several of our friends as they were scurrying around, with schedules in hand, to their next events. And all the comments we heard afterwards from our friends were very positive, stating that the conferences and discussions were extremely interesting and informative. We only had time to make it to three museums:
When we first saw the line at the Musée Picasso, we almost turned around and left. But then we ran into two sets of friends also waiting in line, and once we started talking, we were surprised at how fast the line moved. The painting in the photograph above is painted directly onto the wall of the 1st floor of our apartment building, and is a copy of the last 1/3 of the Picasso painting called “Satyr, Faun, and Centaur with Trident”, which hangs in the Musée Picasso.
After the Musée Picasso, we dashed over to the Musée Peynet, which is a museum of cartoons and caricatures – lots of political and satirical humor from the early part of the 20th-century. Normally, we wouldn’t have gone to this museum for fear that we wouldn’t understand the French humor. However, because it was free, we thought we would just take a quick look around. Although, I’m sure we didn’t get a lot of the nuances, we did understand enough of the humor to really enjoy it, and we will definitely go back to the Musée Peynet again as paying patrons.
Our last visit was to the Musée d’Archéologie in the Bastion St-André, which is another of the many fortifications built by Maréchal Vauban under Louis XIV. The museum houses many Greek and Roman artifacts, such as pottery, amphorae, salvaged shipwreck objects, a lead sarcophagus, a bread oven, etc. We were fascinated with the model of Antibes back in the days when it was totally surrounded by the old ramparts. A portion of the ramparts were torn down in the 19th-century to give the city room to expand.
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