Three Museums

28 July 2017

            In the few days I’ve visited three museums. Transatlantic groans of recognition may be heard from my children, who recall being dragged on these excursions. Subscribers to the Swiss Museum Pass, like myself, can see them for free; a bargain to be sure.

            Museums reveal the values, past and present, of the segment of society that funds them. The three: Latenium, the museum of the archeology of the Neuchatel region, which includes the famous site of La Tene; the art museum of the suburb of Pully and the Musee de l’Art Brut, Jean DeBuffet’s magnificent collection of outsider art in Lausanne.

            All three are beautifully presented. The Latenium was purpose built along the lakeshore and in a park which displays reconstructed pre-historic dwellings. I find myself fascinated by the interplay between the Celtic inhabitants of the region and the conquering Romans. Once the Roman Empire retreated, that creolized culture seems the source for some of the artistry of the Middle Ages.

Diorama of Celts Working for Romans

Celtic Metalwork

            The Pully Museum is housed in a renovated townhouse on a cobbled street between the town center and the lake where I swim. Once rural, Pully is a wealthy enclave of Lausanne. My fellow visitors resembled me and my swim companions: well preserved ladies of a certain age. The Museum has a permanent collection of paintings of the Lac Leman waterscape.

            The special exhibition is what drew me to the Museum.  In 1990, the National Gallery in Washington, DC exhibited Matisse in Morocco, the color rich paintings and sketches which resulted from his visit there in 1912 and 1913. Matisse was one of many who found, as Michael Kimmelman wrote at the time, “Europe was orderly and predictable. Morocco meant extravagance.”  I treasure the catalogue of that exhibit for Matisse’s palette and shapes, but it wasn’t until we stayed in a house on St. Barts that was a virtual display case for French Orientalism, that everyday orientalism made itself clear.

            The Pully Museum was exhibiting a survey of the paintings of Edouard Morerod. A native son, born in 1879, Morerod travelled Europe and North Africa before WWI, pre-dating Matisse in Morocco. People of color are his chosen subjects for his paintings:  Algerians, gypsies and flamenco dancers. He gives them a monumentality through their costumes, voluminous white, or stringent color, which contrasts with subtle facial portraits.

Morerod Self-Portait

            

The third Museum has a world-wide reputation. Its instigator was the painter and sculptor Jean DuBuffet. He studied and collected Art Brut, created by individuals in various sorts of asylums and prisons, at first in Europe, and then world-wide. The vast collection inspired and terrified me. In it you meet and see the work of individuals who created their work obsessively.

            I wonder, is madness the price of non-stop creativity? 

More on the #8 Bus Stops

26 July 2017

            Yesterday, the #8 bus took me from Alpes, past Jurigoz, Montchoisi, Musee Olympique, Denantou, Tour Haldimand, Bourdonniere, Verney, Chataignier, Chemin de Somais, Pully Port to the Vignes stop, which is closest to the swimming pools. The bus continued on to Verriere.

            When I finished my swim, I took the #47 bus to the Pully train station, or Gare. The next train was to Vevey, and in Vevey the next train was a little one that climbs back towards Lausanne through Chexbres, the one time home of MFK Fisher. I took it. Doubtful, she’d recognize the place, except for the vineyards. After the decades, it appears no longer a farming village. Above it, one of the main lines from the Mittelland to Lausanne has brought industry and agricultural processing.

            I went back down to Vevey. The next train went through Montreux to the Chateau of Chillon. My Byron days are done, and I have no desire to see yet another monument on which he carved his initials, but I did want to admire the lake from another vantage point. There are as well boats that sail from Chillon to Lausanne. Little matter that we charged into a brisk wind from the east: the enormous pistons of the steam-driven-side-wheeler have been serving since 1910, and did so yesterday.

            I’m unable to discover the origin of Chillon, but no matter. It has taken on the meaning given it by Byron, and is the third most visited site in Switzerland.

            And so back to the meanings of the stops of #8 bus. Jurigoz and Montchoisi are wonderful examples of names created from trying to represent words from one language in another.

            They sound like the French for Jericho and Chosen Mountain. Perhaps, but they are derived from place names for the area. Jovigo (Jericho) was a 12^th Century domain, of which Rongi Mel (Montchoisi) was a part. The previously mentioned Georgette was also a section of this domain, called La Jarjata.

            Musee Olympique is the location of the museum celebrating Lausanne’s foundational role in the modern Olympic movement.

Now we are close to the lake and its picturesque vistas. Next is Denantou, which was as an estate with a garden, now a park. Tour Haldiman is what the English call a folly, an ersatz ruin, designed by the landscape architect of that name.

The next stops speak to the former use of the land for agricultural pursuits:  Bourdonniere refers to bee keeping, Chataignier to the Chestnut tree, Vignes to vineyards, Verriere to a glass house.  

A lot of history in a ten minute bus ride!

A Stranger Learns a Bit of Local History

Market at Riponne from steps of Rumine.

25 July  2017

            Musing on the subject of place names, I remember the stops on the Harlem Valley Line, through Westchester County, which I often took from Grand Central Station to Pleasantville or Chappaqua, where my mother lived, or to Brewster, to get to Pawling, across the state line from Hidden Hollow. 125^th Street, Tremont, Fordham, Botanical Garden, Williams Bridge, Woodlawn, Wakefield, Fleetwood, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, Crestwood, Scarsdale, Hartsdale, White Plains, Valhalla, Mt. Pleasant, Hawthorne… and then beyond to Mount Kisco, Bedford Hills, Katonah, Goldens Bridge, Purdy’s, Croton Falls, Southeast, Patterson and Pawling.

            As long a list, and as interminable a train ride, these place names, this toponomy, as linguists call it, tells stories of local history and geography. Purdys, for example was named for Isaac Hart Purdy, who, in 1847, sold the right-of-way to the railroad for a dollar, on the condition that they always pick up passengers and freight there. Chappaqua and Katonah, on the other hand, were names tied to the Algonquin family of native tribes inhabiting the area when Europeans arrived to settle.

In addition, each name has a personal resonance for me or the commuter or other resident. Purdys for me was the place we bought cider. I associate Botanical Garden and Scarsdale with my mother, who was a volunteer at the first and school librarian at the second. Chappaqua was where I lived from 1955 until I went away to college in 1964.

            In the nature of toponomy, words are preserved, but often their origin is forgotten. What to say about the meaning of place names to a stranger like me in Lausanne? Learning their origin is learning a bit of the history of the city.

            In Lausanne, the #8 electrified bus is my neighbor and friend, from our street, Avenue des Alpes, up to the Wednesday-Saturday market in front of the Palais de la Rumine. I’ve written about the Cantonal Museums of Geology and Archeology that it houses. Why is it a palais? It was built at the turn of the 19^th Century with the donation from Gabriel de la Rumine, a Russian nobleman, whose mother was a Lausannois.

            What about the market place itself: Riponne-M.Bejart? It seems that the market was to be an extension or addition to the established one at Place de la Palud, down the hill on which the old quarter is built. Riponne is derived from the Latin verb to replace or shelve. Or at least that is my folk etymology for the word; folk etymologies being the other thing that happens in toponomy. Both Riponne and Palud were constructed over marshy flat places formed by the numerous streams, Palud refers to malaria.

            M. Bejart, on the other hand, is obvious. Maurice Bejart was the founder of Lausanne’s renowned ballet, that I hope to see in December. Next stop is St. Francois, a small church, initially part of a 13^th Century Franciscan monastery. Now it is a busy interchange, about the farthest think from seclusion imaginable.

            Down the hill is Georgette, named for the planned extension of the city to the north east of the railroad station. And after that, Alpes, my stop, named for the cross street. To which I must go to catch the bus. I’ll continue the downhill stops in my next post!

A Very Physical City

Tiny sketch of giant mountains; view south east from lakeshore.

23 July 2017

            Lausanne makes New York and even San Francisco seem flat, two-dimensional.  An avenue follows the curve of the lakeshore, intersected by those that climb tortuous paths up steep hills. At pauses in the climb there are streets that are flat for some length. In the oldest part of the city, most quickly fork into corkscrews up and around ancient buildings.

            This makes physical demands on people and transport. Hence the system of trams and electric busses. In the city center, steps often have an up escalator placed next to them.

            I’ve learned to walk. I’m amazed that climbing the hills, even the stairs seem easier each day, even when carrying groceries. The downhills are the challenge.

            Outside my door and across the street, I can catch a bus and be at the lakeside pool in Pully in 8 minutes.  This is less time than it takes me to drive or bike from my home in Menlo Park to the city pool there.

            I get off the bus a stop early and walk past Pully Port, where the local sailing club tows lines sailing dinghies filled with children out to the middle of the lake for their sailing lessons. 

            Fall is already in the air, with a wind raising waves in the lake. I change and get into the mid-waist water where my fellow aged ladies do water walking and aerobics. I do the same, chattering with them about the cold wind. Sometimes they understand my French, other times not. One thought I said Mustique, rather than musique! She looked like she knew what she was talking about.

            Emerging, I walk over to the Olympic pool with its lanes for lap swimmers.  I swim until I feel a chill in my legs, and the growling of my stomach.

            Dried off and dressed, I catch the bus back towards Lausanne proper. Halfway there, at a roundabout called Montchoisi, I get off and take a seat outdoors. A café au lait warms me, although the cigarette smoke from a fellow patron mars at the illusion of a healthy citizenry. Restored, I remount the bus for the three stops on up, over the railroad tracks and home.

            Can you tell that I will miss this place come December 31? Worry not about fall and the end of lake swimming; when the outdoor pool closes in September, there is the indoor pool at Mon Repos, a few steep streets away.