Nice and Southern France -- A Sunny Holiday Destination

Author: Yishang Tang Jun ed.
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-06-01
Features: The Mediterranean basin has historically been at the intersection of European history and culture. Geographically, the northern coast of the Mediterranean is Europe, the eastern coast is Asia (the Middle East), and the southern coast is Africa. Eastward, it connects to the Red Sea through the Suez Canal, and westward, it connects to the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar. Culturally, the Middle Eastern region on the eastern coast is the birthplace of the two major religions of the world today—Christianity and Islam. The northern coast of Greece is the cradle of European civilization. Especially during the Roman era, the Roman Empire occupied the entire inland of Europe. Later, it was discovered that controlling the sea was more important. Italy is the center of the Mediterranean both geographically and politically, so the coastal countries that were occupied formed a common political and economic region. The ancient Romans called this sea the "Mediterranean," and its Latin original, Mare Mediterraneum, literally means "Sea of the Central Lands." In the later period of the Roman Empire, Christianity flourished in the Middle East, advocating equality and friendship among people. This clashed with the state religion of ancient Rome, which worshiped the emperor, so early Christians suffered cruel persecution from the Roman Empire. Some were taken to Rome as slaves, some were executed, and many were exiled to the Mediterranean on ships without sails or oars, drifting with the wind, letting the vast sea decide their fate. Fortunately, with God's guidance, the Christians finally drifted to the northern coast of the Mediterranean, which was then part of Provence in Italy, the coastline of southern France from Nice to Monaco—this is the beginning of the cultural history of southern France. Therefore, Christianity and Islam started from the same place (the Middle East) but took two different paths of propagation. Christianity spread northward along the Mediterranean coast to various European countries, while Islam spread southward along the Mediterranean coast to various African countries. However, with the passage of time, today when visiting the French Riviera, the most important thing is to experience Europe's vacation culture. Europeans have two types of vacations: one is to explore famous historical and cultural sites, but more often they go to the seaside or a quiet village for a holiday. Vacation has two meanings: physical relaxation and psychological regulation. With the development of European industrialization and the rise of urban life, people work long hours, rarely see the sun, and work and live in a rhythmic manner, finally becoming machines with a rhythm. Especially in urban life, where food, clothing, shelter, and transportation are far from nature, people experience various degrees of alienation physically and psychologically, such as high blood pressure and human allergies becoming national diseases in industrialized countries. Thus, people yearn for a natural life away from society and the city. And the sun, beach, air, and sea—the very essence of the Mediterranean—are not the places people long for? Around vacation culture, the French Riviera has concentrated two major cultural movements of European modern reflection: Romanticism in the 19th century and Impressionism at the beginning of the 20th century—Romantic artists discovered the French Riviera, and Impressionist masters brought the French Riviera to the center of world art. The coastline from Nice to Monaco is the most vibrant vacation destination in Europe, known as the "European Beach." Even today, people often say that the French Riviera is the paradise of the rich. In fact, before the 19th century, vacation was a privilege of the rich or nobility. Today in Europe, vacation has become the ordinary life of every citizen. While the rich can stay in five-star hotels, ordinary citizens may stay in three-star hotels or even camp in the open. But regardless of wealth, everyone shares this same sun, beach, air, and sea—the vacation culture of the French Riviera. The rise of vacation culture in the French Riviera began in the 19th century, precisely during Europe's Romantic period in literature, art, and music. It was during this time that Romantic poets and artists first discovered the sea and fell in love with it, because in the wave of the Industrial Revolution, people felt a loss of soul and began to trace their roots, longing for the permanent natural life they had lost. Dear, we sit together, sadly on this small boat. The night is so tranquil, we swim in the water, lying on this vast expanse of surface. The distant, warm, and ghostly little islands are shrouded in misty moonlight, covering the reefs before them. There, the songs of love swirl, there, the dance of mist fills the air. There, the melodies of love drift, the songs rise like the waves of the sea. We silently swim past the island of love, sadly, sadly, swimming toward the vast sea. —Heine (words), Brahms (music): "Sea Voyage" (Op. 96 No. 4, 1884) England, the birthplace of Romantic culture, saw the rise of the naturalistic English garden during that era. In 1839, Lord Brougham, British Prime Minister, discovered the beauty of the Mediterranean coast and its pleasant climate while traveling through Italy. He found it far from the hustle and bustle of society. After resigning, he settled there, built his own villa, and lived there until his death 30 years later. During this time, he wrote to many friends and family describing the beauty of the French Riviera, sparking the interest of the British, who came to the French Riviera in winter for vacation. In 1858, French poet Conneau, while vacationing on the French Riviera, wrote to the Empress (Napoleon III's wife) about the beauty and suitability of the Mediterranean coast. This further piqued the interest of the French in the coast, leading the French King, nobles, and others to vacation there, which in turn sparked the interest of other European royal families. The northern coast of the Mediterranean quickly became a resort destination for European royalty, nobles, and wealthy scholars. As more British and French people vacationed on the coast, the tourism industry began to flourish. Villas and hotels were built everywhere, even casinos for the entertainment of the rich, making it one of Europe's most famous vacation and health resorts. Unfortunately, this golden age ended during World War I, and the coast became deserted once again, with luxurious hotels lying empty. Fortunately, a few years later, the United States entered the "Jazz Age," and Americans came to Europe to seek the natural and cultural landscapes they could not enjoy at home. Thus, the French Riviera was again discovered. But the once aristocratic vacation culture of the coast had now become "jazzified": no longer were there royal families and nobles, but actors, celebrities, and writers. Whiskey replaced champagne, and American Buicks replaced British Rolls-Royces. Especially in 1925, an American writer (a millionaire) broke the tradition of Europeans vacationing in winter and chose to vacation there in summer, discovering that the coast was even more beautiful in summer. From then on, the French Riviera transformed from a traditional winter vacation destination into a summer vacation destination, changing the vacation culture of the French Riviera. The two most influential thinkers of the 20th century, Marx and Nietzsche, both had a deep connection with Nice and the French Riviera in their later years. Marx, who traveled his entire life, was advised by Engels to go to the Mediterranean coast for vacation. In May 1882, Marx traveled alone through Marseille and Nice to Monte Carlo in Monaco for rest and treatment. He wrote to his daughter, Eleanor, describing his trip to the French coast: "When I left Ferme, I told him, 'When I arrive in the French Riviera, the weather will change suddenly.' And indeed, starting in early January, the people on the French coast were delighted with such a sunny summer-like weather, though only a few complained about the lack of rain. When I arrived in Marseille on May 4th, it began to rain, and it rained all day or half the day (often at night), the temperature dropped, and the cold wind blew fiercely—I was very proud to be such a 'fate-driven' person!" He wrote to Engels: "I came to Marseille in the rain and came to Nice in the rain, and when I went to Monte Carlo, I brought the rain there too!" Marx's words, like his fierce hatred of injustice, were as powerful as his ability to control the weather. Unfortunately, nine months later, this "fate-driven" fighter left the world in London. Nietzsche, like Marx, was also full of hatred for injustice but was a philosopher filled with melancholy and solitude. During the most solitary period of his life—leaving Basel University, wandering through the French Riviera and northern Italy—the last six winters were spent in a small house in Nice (1883–1888). As soon as he arrived in Nice, he wrote to a friend: "The day before yesterday, I finally decided to stay in Nice, and my life will be connected with Nice—here I will spend 220 full days of the year. I made this decision because: the brilliant sunlight here is like torture to me, and I often wish to endure such torment. The six months of sunlight I have endured here are almost equivalent to the sunlight of the entire year in (Italy) Genoa. For this, I said goodbye to this city (Nice), which was the favorite of Columbus. But finally, I was drawn back by the beautiful October here." During this most lost period of his life, the landscapes of Nice accompanied him in completing some of his most important works, such as "The Anti-Christian" declaring the death of God, his autobiography "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," and his most important philosophical poetry collection, becoming his third creative boom. But the brilliant sunlight and landscapes of Nice could not hold him—on New Year's Day of 1889, while in Turin (160 kilometers from Nice), he saw a stable boy mistreating a horse, and Nietzsche rushed forward, hugging the horse's neck and crying until he collapsed—Nietzsche had a mental breakdown. With his family's help, he returned to Weimar, Germany. The later Impressionist master Van Gogh wrote in a letter to his friends in mid-July 1888: "The day I arrived in (the rural French Riviera) and discussed with an artist friend. He said, 'It's really boring to paint here!' I didn't say anything; I didn't even know what to say to this foolish donkey! I had come here many times, and I had already painted two sketches of this flat land. But what I showed was infinity, eternity. When I was painting, a soldier walked past. I asked him, 'Do you find this land as beautiful as the sea? I see it as beautiful as the sea, even more so, because here people can still live.' My perspective was closer to this soldier." This was the artistic impulse of a generation of Impressionists (especially Expressionists): under the roar of big machines and the noise of metropolises, people once again yearned for the land and the traditional rural life passed down through generations. In fact, as early as the mid-19th century, Marx had already seen the alienation of humanity caused by mass production. In an agrarian society, there was social division of labor but not production division of labor. A farmer went to produce grain and participated in the entire process from sowing to harvesting and sales, so social labor became the path for human development and the cultivation of sound human nature. But in an industrial society, a worker was assigned to process a single part, and he himself didn't know what the part was used for—he became just a link in production. Over time, he himself became alienated into a talking part. Marx opposed urbanization, believing it to be the destruction of natural society by capitalism. Nietzsche detested the commercialization of society, where people worked blindly and fiercely, and the pursuit of wealth through deceit became the purpose and means of life. Thus, he opposed modernization, "step by step, we are descending into decay—this is my definition of modern 'progress.'" As a result, the "modernists," who opposed modernization, emerged. Paris, as one of the great metropolises of modern Europe, was once the cradle of various art movements but later became a marketplace for selling art. In the wave of modernization, one by one "modernist" artists fled Paris, seeking natural landscapes and rural areas in the French Riviera and the Mediterranean coast, because at that time the French Riviera had not yet been affected by the Industrial Revolution and was still full of the natural environment of an agrarian society. Nice and the Mediterranean coast quickly became the cradle of modernist artists. Renoir and Monet of the Impressionist movement, Cézanne of the Post-Impressionist movement, Van Gogh and Gauguin of the Expressionist movement, and Matisse of the Fauvist movement—all the most important art masters of the 20th century—were all deeply connected with Nice and the French Riviera. Van Gogh was not a proponent of "modernism" but a deeply pious and conservative Christian. In his early years, he worked as a theology teacher in England and later as a missionary in Belgium. His paintings were meant to express his uncontrollable religious emotions. In his view, art and life were one, and art was a reflection of the soul. Perhaps because of his adherence to tradition, he could best sense the restlessness and horror of modern society. He feared the roar of machines and being in the crowds of metropolises. In February 1888, Van Gogh left Paris, where he had lived for many years, and came to Arles in Provence (influential in modern art, second only to Nice as a major city in the French Riviera). He had intended to stay there for a short time but ended up settling there until his mental breakdown and suicide. He loved the stimulation of the sun in the primitive countryside and the dazzling glare of the sun facing sunflowers. He saw the French Riviera as a paradise because it was the hometown of Cézanne and the place where Zola spent his childhood. At that time, the European art world was fascinated by Japanese painting, and they imagined Japan as a land full of natural charm. Van Gogh said that coming to the French Riviera was like coming to Japan; he wanted to enrich his subjects with nature and celebrate the great gift of nature to humanity. Every day, he carried his easel to the fields of Arles to paint mountains and trees, walked to the fishing island near Marseille to paint the sea and sails. During the 15 months he lived in Arles, he created over 200 paintings. In his eyes, Arles had "green rivers and the bluest skies, like the colors of Japanese wood carvings. Under the orange-red sunset, the entire land was dyed in blue. The women's clothing was beautiful, especially on Sundays, the entire city gave the impression of being innocent and joyful." However, the natural beauty of the French Riviera could not suppress his inner conflict, and in 1889, Van Gogh's mental state collapsed. In his home in Arles, he picked up a razor and rushed toward Gauguin (another Impressionist master) but missed him. Instead, he cut off the lower part of his left ear. In the last year of his life at the Saint-Rémy psychiatric hospital, his subjects were still the fear of modern society and the prayers to God. His most famous oil painting, "The Starry Night"—the upper part of the painting shows a turbulent sky, while the lower part depicts a peaceful village surrounding a church—reflects his prayer, "Only God can save the sick society of modernity." Arles was later called the "City of Van Gogh." Cézanne's personality was the opposite of Van Gogh's. Van Gogh admired the free brushwork of the East (Japan) and used rough and swift strokes, while Cézanne's painting was very rigorous, sometimes taking 20 minutes to make a single stroke. Although Cézanne's painting became the highest milestone of modern art (Post-Impressionism), he himself never pursued "modern art" but only wanted to leave the studio and paint a vibrant painting of Poussin (a famous Baroque artist) under the open sky. When he was in Paris, he was one of the earliest followers of Impressionism but later parted ways with it. In his view, Impressionism only depicted superficial and shallow impressions of light but failed to reflect the essence and depth of nature. This depth could only be explored by returning to nature and expressing it through color. He left Paris, where he had long been entangled, and returned to his childhood hometown alone—the south of France, Aix (30 kilometers north of Marseille). Mistral (winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904) called the south of France the "Empire of the Sun," and Van Gogh was obsessed with this sun until he became crazy. The Impressionist masters living in Paris only felt the sun of the metropolis, or even just a little light in their small studios—how could they possibly experience the true sunlight of nature? Cézanne was deeply devoted to the Sainte-Victoire mountain near Aix, the very mountain on which he painted over 60 paintings. He broke with the traditional Western painting perspective and adopted a similar scattered perspective to the Chinese painting technique, layer by layer, to depict the veins of the mountain. In his view, linear perspective actually placed the painter at the viewpoint of the painting, depicting the mountain as the painter saw it. In reality, what the viewer saw was only the surface of the mountain, and the artist had to use lines and colors to reflect the essence and spirit of the mountain. Cézanne also visited the French Riviera many times to feel the changes in the colors of the sea and coast under the sun. He wrote to Pissarro near Marseille's Estaque: "The sun here is so strong that I found the edges of objects under the sun were not simply white or black but blue, red, brown, and purple. These color sensations were completely opposite to what we had imagined before." The "Empire of the Sun" of the French Riviera and the countryside produced such an epoch-making artist in the history of art. Except for the works of Expressionist artists like Munch, K?the Kollwitz, and Rodin, which still reflected the social reality of the time, most modern artists' spirits were immersed in an ideal heaven, creating "the last happy time in Europe." From Monet's Impressionist masterpieces, such as "Impression," "Woman with an Umbrella," and "Water Lilies," one would never imagine that he had once been so poor that he considered suicide at the age of 28; Gauguin went to Tahiti in the Pacific to seek the paradise humanity had lost, but who would have thought that upon his return, he was poor and destitute, "If I cannot change my fate, I will end my own life." Van Gogh sold only one painting in his entire life (for 400 francs), and when he was living in Arles, he wrote to a friend: "Unfortunately, life here is not as cheap as I imagined. I used to spend 5 francs a day, now 4.",。1904，(Paul Signac)(Saint-Tropez)————，，(7000)。，。，，，、，。、、，、、，。《、》(Lux, Calme, Volupté)，，，，——、，“”。()()，1918，l954。1963””，，，，20。，，，，，，，——：《》，!!。!!!，，!——：《》、，，——：《》，，“”，“”，“”。，。“，”，2000《》。(Feuerbach)，，：，，，…”，，()，！”200。，：，。、、，。，，，。，。，，。，，、，！