PORTE À PORTE by P.B. Lecron

Hôtel de la Lauzière, Arles

Here's another stop-dead-in-your-tracks early 17th century monumental door. The elaborate façade is conspicuous proof of the social status of the grande famille that once lived within the walls of the hôtel particulier to which it gives entrance. 


At 42 rue de la République in Arles, the door is framed by stone torsades sculpted in the Mannerist style, a movement in art and architecture between the Renaissance and Baroque periods in which unusual effects were obtained by the use of scale, lighting, perspective and color.

Vocabulary
une grande famille: an important family as opposed to a big family, which would be translated as une famille nombreuse


hôtel particulier: an imposing private residential structure; a townhouse

une colonne torse: a twisted column
torsader: to twist

porte à porte: door-to-door

Read more: Stone and Illusion

Text & photos ©2011 P.B. Lecron

SHUTTERS

Ô, so Arles are these windows and shutters painted sunny Provençal colors délavés by the elements. In  French, full-paneled shutters, above, are called volets, as opposed to persiennes which are louvered, below. We can't help but think of the lilting and so typically French-style film music of  Les Volets Clos when looking at them...(click on the title to hear the vintage hit.)

Did you know that Arles is second only to Rome in number of Roman ruins?  Arles' arena, theatre and cryptes date to the first century B.C., and its Roman baths and necropole date the to 6th and 7th centuries, A.D. But that's not all; no less that five thematic pedestrian circuits guide visitors along the Arles of Antiquity, the Arles of the Middle Ages, the Arles of the Renaissance and Classic periods,  the Arles of Vincent Van Gogh, and finally a special tour focused on Arles as a world heritage site. More to come...

Vocabularly

delavé(e): washed out

Les Volets Clos: the closed shutters

Fermons la fenêtre et laissons les volet clos: Let's shut the window and leave the shutters closed.

  

Text & photo ©2011 P.B. Lecron