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CULTURE

Oldest guardian of French language dies at 103

Rene de Obaldia, a writer and member of the Académie Française charged with protecting the French language, has passed away.

René de Obaldia, a play-write and member of the Académie Française, pictured in 2003.
René de Obaldia, a play-write and member of the Académie Française charged with protecting the French language, has died at the age of 103.(Photo by JEAN-PIERRE MULLER / AFP)

The oldest member of the venerable Académie Française, the official guardian of the French language, has died aged 103, the institution said on Thursday.

Rene de Obaldia, a poet, novelist and playwright, had been a member of the Académie for over 20 years.

At 98, he published his last book, “Pearls of Life”, a collection of quotes that included the proverb: “If you want to reach 100 you should start young.”

De Obaldia was born in Hong Kong in October 2018 of a French mother and Panamanian father, grew up in Amiens in northern France, and then made it to Paris to develop his literary talent.

He became one of France’s most successful playwrights, and was sometimes compared to Irishman Samuel Beckett or Romanian-French writer Eugene Ionesco for his sharp humour and unconventional style.

“I’ve always had a sense of ridiculousness, which helped me keep certain things at a distance,” he said in a 2008 interview.

Outside of France de Obaldia was best-known for his plays which were translated into English and dozens of other languages.

The Académie Française, founded in 1635, is tasked with debating, and deciding on, the officially approved use of French.

Over the centuries some of the most eminent writers in French have been elected to its 40-strong council although some of the greats — including Charles Baudelaire and Emile Zola — were never admitted.

The Académie’s members, known as “The Immortals”, are replaced only after they die.

READ MORE Five things to know about the Academie française

One of the Académie’s main preoccupations is the defence of the French language against incursions from English, especially American English.

With some success: Most French people accept the ruling that computers should be called “ordinateurs” although they will refer to their portable device as “le laptop”.

But the French “mel” or “courriel” for e-mail never caught on beyond government websites, and French people call a recently-founded successful company “une start-up” defying the Académie which says it should be called “jeune pousse” (young sprout).

READ MORE Why are the French so protective of their language?

More recently, the Académie has challenged the government over the use of English on national ID cards.

In 2020 it ruled that Covid, called “le Covid” by most people, was actually a feminine noun requiring the definite article “la”.

It has yet to take a stance on the increasing use of “le woke-isme” and the gender-neutral pronoun “iel” which is increasingly used to refer to non-binary people.

Member comments

  1. The lack of an IT in French is, perhaps, the only ridiculous failure.
    Granted it’s not the only romance* language where it’s glaringly absent.

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

    A French person will always know, however good your vocabulary and accent, the moment you stray into a word where you get the gender wrong … “ahahah! You are not French!!!

    The only other time I got a stare was years ago when I asked a Policeman on traffic duty, which on ramp I need for Reims (I pronounced it “Reeeems”). It is actually pronounced how an American says France without the F sound. (Rance?)

    And WHY is the word Francais masculine? Yet, the (French) word France is Feminine!

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CULTURE

Paris museum takes visitors back 150 years to Impressionism’s birth

The Orsay Museum in Paris is marking 150 years of Impressionism from Tuesday with an unprecedented reassembling of the masterpieces that launched the movement, and a virtual reality experience that takes visitors back in time.

Paris museum takes visitors back 150 years to Impressionism's birth

Using VR technology, visitors to “Paris 1874: Inventing Impressionism” can take a plunge into the streets, salons and beauty spots that marked a revolution in art.

Through VR helmets, they can walk alongside the likes of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne on April 15, 1874, when, tired of being rejected by the conservative gatekeepers of the official art Salon, these rebellious young painters put on their own independent show, later seen as the birth of Impressionism.

The Orsay has brought together 160 paintings from that year, including dozens of masterpieces from that show, including the blood-red sun of Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise”, credited with giving the movement its name, and his “Boulevard des Capucines” where the exhibition took place.

READ MORE: Places to visit and things to do in France in Spring 2024

In rapid, spontaneous brushstrokes, the Impressionists captured everyday scenes of modern life, from Degas’s ballet dancers to Camille Pissaro’s countryside idylls to Auguste Renoir’s riverside party in “Bal du Moulin de la Galette”.

They came to define the excitement and restlessness of a new, modern age emerging out of a devastating war with Prussia and a short-lived Parisian revolt a few years earlier.

“The Impressionists wanted to paint the world as it is, one in the midst of major change,” said Sylvie Patry, co-curator of the exhibition.

“They were interested in new subjects: railways, tourism, the world of entertainment… They wanted to put sensations, impressions, the immediate moment at the heart of their painting,” she added.

‘Nuanced’

Thanks to loans from the National Gallery in Washington and other museums, it is the first time that many of the paintings — including Renoir’s “The Parisian Girl” and “The Dancer” — have hung together in 150 years.

The exhibition also includes works from that year’s official Salon, showing how the Impressionists rejected the stiff formalism of traditionalists and their obsession with great battles and mythological tales, but also how there was some cross-over, as all sorts of painters gradually adopted new styles.

“The story of that exhibition is more nuanced than we think,” said Patry.

“The artists all knew each other and had begun painting in this different style from the 1860s.”

Impressionism did not take off immediately: only some 3,500 people came to the first show, compared with 300,000 to the Salon, and only four paintings were sold out of some 200 works.

It would take several more exhibitions in the following years for the movement to make its mark.

The Orsay exhibition runs to July 14th and moves to Washington from September.

The virtual reality experience has been extended to the end of the Paris Olympics on August 11th.

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