Magical Mascarons... Bordeaux.

Despite the glaring sunlight and the soaring temperatures. I could not stop myself from squinting up at the incredible sculpted heads that gaze down from the grand facades in a city that is recognized as a world heritage site by the UNESCO; Bordeaux.

Although I was unaware of the fame of these illustrious 'têtes' on my visit, I learnt of their well-merited acclaim as symbols of the capital of the Gironde region regrettably only after the event. Had I known that they were such a 'thing' in Bordeaux, I would have observed them a little more methodically, rather than just taking shots at random.

In my ignorance, I simply enjoyed trying to spot these stone faces around the older parts of the city, and then admired the different expressions and accoutrements they bore.

The term 'mask' is commonly used in English to describe these sculpted works, however the French masque does not bear quite the same meaning and hence mascaron would be more appropriate. Indeed, originating in the Arabic word mascara and the Italian mascharone, the mascaron implies a'large grotesque mask' or 'buffoonery'.

Hence the mascaron would display exaggerated facial traits, contorted into comic or ridiculous expressions and grimaces yet its function was rather more serious - to act as a guardian to ward off evil forces and bad luck. Mascarons would therefore be placed above doorways, caves, grottos and fountains to keep at bay all that was undesirable.

In Bordeaux, many allegorical, fantastic or comic mascarons adorn the building facades, yet there are also figures from Ancient Greek mythology, identifiable by the symbolic attributes that accompany them, albeit less familiar to us today and this has resulted in the terms masque/mascaron becoming somewhat interchangeable.

Strictly speaking, however, masques would typically be situated above arcades or colonnades on grand buildings and would feature the divinities, the seasons and other more 'serious' themes compared to those of the mascarons.

Inspired by Greco-Latin Antiquity, certain Renaissance artists had used decorative heads in their own sculptural features and consequently during the reign of François 1er, Fontainebleau benefitted from this influence which then spread across France and Europe.

In Paris, some of the first masques were employed on the Hôtel Carnavalet in the mid 16th century and later on the Palais du Louvre.

The first heads appeared in Bordeaux in the 16th and 17th century but their greatest success was reserved for the Classical period when they were de rigueur to reflect the growing prosperity and status of the city.

Olympian gods are to be seen in the Bordelais streets; Minerva with her owl, Jupiter with his thunder, Bacchus with his- vine leaves, Neptune with his trident, Mercury and his caduceus... Much of Bordeaux's wealth and might came from its position as main royal port in France and second busiest port in the world after London.

During its golden age, the Port de la Lune was the vast trading hub, supplying Europe with its insatiable appetite for commodity staples such as wine, sugar, cocoa and coffee. Less glorious now was the city's trade in slaves, with Bordeaux holding the unenviable title as being the second largest French slave-trading city after Nantes. If you look carefully, you will notice black men and women heads looking down on you, as a nod to this past, whilst references to Bordeaux freemasons are also still visible.

When the 'Pearl of Aquitaine' was subsequently transformed by the grand urban redesign masterminded by the 'Haussmann bordelais' - Marquis de Tourny - the inclusion of masques/mascarons was imposed for the enhancement of the facades.

After the Revolution, the tenets of Neo-classicism led to a more sober approach to architectural embellishment and therefore the lavish extremes of Rococo style - including the masques and mascarons - fell out of favour.

Today, the exact number of these sculpted heads is not clear, and even less certain are the names of the artists responsible for their realisation, yet somehow that adds to their magic!

Elegance and Decadence...

I keep wondering and pondering about what happened to elegance as an aesthetic aspiration. Wherever you go, wherever you look, much of what is displayed these days appears (to me) shoddy, sloppy and soulless, proposing either dull and depressing materials and colours or an array of garish, cheap ones. Nothing is made to last, but perhaps that is not such a bad thing, all things considered. So when I went to the historic Elysée Montmartre, now used as a venue, I was confronted with the old and the new...

Making my way up to the reception area, I thought about all those other people who had likewise ascended the impressive stairway over the years.. not to mention all those looking down on them doing so! Today, the lighting is brightly-coloured, in line with the modern usage of the Elysée as function rooms for professional events, parties and so on.

However, the serving counter in the salon area surrounding the vast stairway was stunning with its grand windows, panelling and the ceiling frescoes that were partly lit up by the chandeliers. I loved gazing up at these, champagne in hand, trying to imagine what social gatherings must have been like in past centuries since inauguration of the Elysée-Montmartre as a salle de spectacle in 1807.

Passionflower and The Blue Bower...

I recently saw Rossettis' The Blue Bower (1865), currently on loan from the Barber Institute at the Courtauld Gallery. The artist's model and subsequent mistress - Fanny Cornforth - was but one of several such 'stunners' whose beauty was caught in the mesmerizing paintings they inspired. With her rich russet hair, tumbling down, her prominent neck and rose-bud mouth, Fanny was very much Rossetti's 'type'. However, I would say that the likenesses all of the women whom he painted seem to blend together to capture his aesthetic ideal. Although they were different from one another - these women shared a particular uniqueness or Rossetti delivered their image in such a manner so as to highlight this. The long, tumbling hair that was truly a 'crowning glory', the distinctive nose, the expressive, ever-parted lips, the pale eyelashes visible in the light, the tapering fingers that are so eloquent are all the key features in the portraits of his women.

Surrounded by exotic Chinese cherry-blossom blue tiles, and the intertwined flowers and tendrils of the passionflower, Fanny gazes out onto us as her fingers pluck the strings of a Japanese instrument, the koto. Her expression is hard to define - she appears timeless and uncompromising in all her splendour, further enhanced by the jewel-like colours typical in the rendition of Pre-Raphaelite art. Born in 1835, at thirty years old, Fanny Cornforth, is indeed stunning, as she is in Rossetti's Bocca Baciata (Lips That Have Been Kissed). Yet these richly painted images that convey an idealized, sensual beauty and untainted, other-worldly purity were far removed from the harsher, lacklustre realities of Fanny's life.

From a modest background, she had to work throughout her life, as a servant, housekeeper and, of course, artist's model. Her outspoken nature and supposedly limited grasp of the social niceties deemed essential to a decent Victorian lady, meant that Fanny was never fully accepted by Rossetti's entourage. Yet what she may perhaps have lacked in education and breeding, she made up for in her looks in youth and a certain devotion to the friendship that she maintained with Rossetti until the end, when his family drove her from his home. Fanny did marry twice, but this did not lead to any long-term security so that poverty and ill-health resulted in her final years being spent in a mental asylum where she was ultimately buried in a collective grave.

Before and after death, her name was frequently sullied by rumours of immoral behaviour and inappropriate manner during her lifetime with and without Rossetti, and the last photograph of her in old age bears no ressemblance to the woman she had once been; the hair, mouth and nose are in no way distinctive features. And yet the paintings live on, in their opulence, capturing the idealized lover and muse that she had at one time incorporated, like passionflowers bursting out into the sunlight in their extravagant glory before sundown.