Until the 23rd of May, the Luxembourg Museum in Paris is showing “Cranach and his time,” an exhibition based around the work of the great German 15th century painter and engraver Lucas Muller – known as Lucas Cranach the Elder. The show highlights the influences that Cranach had on fellow artists of the period.

Lucas Muller was born in Kronach, Germany in 1472. His Renaissance work was strongly influenced by Lutheran humanism and reflected the religious and political events that would come to define the era. His first works are dated around 1502, when the artist was in Vienna, and had changed his name to Lucas Cranach the Elder, after the ancestors of his home town. During this time, his paintings were marked by Catholic imagery, and an idyllic conceptualization of life, in particular, the piece called Crucifixions.

In 1505, Cranach moved to Wittemberg, and became the Saxony court painter, taking up various important political engagements, including being appointed Mayor in 1537. The religious political disputes of Martin Luther affected Cranach, along with many other artists and intellectuals of the period. Wittenburg had been established as a space for the theoretical development of the reformation of the church as proposed by Luther, who had accused it of greed, abuse and paganism.

This debate was passionately followed by the nobility, who had much invested in an alliance with the Catholic church. In spite of this, the rebellion of the peasants was spurred on by Luther’s words, believing that the reformists would be in support of their confrontation with the dominant classes. In attempt to pacify and calm the political storm, in 1521, the Pope expelled Luther from Catholicism.

Cranach, extremely affected by these changes, became a representative of the Protestant cause. This era is reflected in his pictorial work. Cranach defended the Lutheran fight – but his strong political links and influences in the Catholic hierarchy meant that he had to maintain a dual religious affiliations – as illustrated in his portrait of Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mayence.

In 1508, Cranach visited Holland, where he painted Emperor Maximilian I and Charles I. Amongst his paintings of the time, are interesting biblical scenes with nude images which add a transgressive touch to religious art, and reflect a trend in German art.

Cranach was a prolific artist who in his long career produced around 5000 works, many of which have been displayed in around 1000 different museums and private collections. Stand out pieces include his versions of Adam and Eve.

For more information http://www.museeduluxembourg.fr/

Nancy Guzman

Looking at Cranach’s paintings is a pleasure – his way with colour makes him a renaissance master. To discover the work of an artist who lived through much politcal and religious upheaval, head down to the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. And then why not rent one of the apartments in Paris and explore the whole city.

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Translated by: Poppy
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It is not uncommon to find skeptics who say this phenomenon is a mere urban legend although it is widely spread. But you just need a minimal research in the field of psychiatry to prove that the mysterious Paris syndrome exists and has had for a long time already a place in the literature, particularly in Japan where there are the vast majority of cases.

The first one to describe the problem was the Japanese psychiatrist who lives in France Hirokai Ota, who characterized it as a temporary psychological condition suffered by some of his compatriots when they visit the French capital. According to data provided by the Japanese Embassy in Paris -where they have organized directory services and medical units to treat patients- twenty people a year are estimated to suffer from it, a large percentage of which must be repatriated immediately, as the only possible cure is returning to Japan as soon as possible and never come back to Paris. Apparently women around thirty are the most likely sector to experience symptoms of the syndrome.

Many of these symptoms (rapid pulse, sickness, dizziness, fainting, hallucinations, sweating, tachycardia) are similar to those presented in the Stendhal syndrome, which is the result of feeling overwhelmed by an excessive aesthetic emotion, either by quality or quantity of works of art and beauty offered to the viewer at a moment. But the Paris syndrome refers rather to the contrary, i.e. a product of disillusionment when finding a city below the idealized image the tourists had made of it before the trip.

It would, therefore, be a case of culture shock that would lead to extreme trauma accompanied by physical symptoms characteristic of a crisis or nervous breakdown, which may also include anxiety, feelings of persecution or a feeling that one is a victim of a deliberate hostility and aggression. Movies, photos, songs, TV series etc., provided to the Japanese the idea of a distant culture where everything is romantic, idyllic and sophisticated. Contact when getting to Paris with a space where this view faces with reality and the frenetic pulse of a great modern metropolis, with corresponding doses of haste, poor education, strong odors, noise and other, plus the fact that body language of the French is literally the antithesis of Japanese culture (to say nothing of the impertinence of some waiters) and verbal language is expressed in a language completely incomprehensible to most Nippon visitors causes this disorder in a percentage of them, although very small, considering the hundreds of thousands of Japanese visitors to Paris each year, it is nothing but significant.

Paul Oilzum

This happening in the so-called city of love continues to seem highly illustrative. If you rent one of the apartments in Paris you are warned about the danger of idealizing things too much.?

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Translated by: Maria
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Until April 10, the Palais de Tokyo exhibits Traces, installation by renowned Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai. The exhibition seeks to link the work of the artist with his lives through emotional intimacy reflected in the work created from images taken from his 12 movies.

Amos Gitai was born in Haifa, Israel, in 1950. He was marked by the story of the birth of the State of Israel and the effects of the Holocaust inherited from parents of German origin. He became involved in filmmaking thanks to the interest in capturing the complex historical and political reality of his country that is part of the Middle East history. He began to study architecture, but his passion for movies led him to abandon the degree. His first short films were made ??during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when he was performing military service and from a helicopter he started to capture images at 8 mm. Curiously, the helicopter was downed by a missile on the very day of his birthday.

In 1977 he began working on documentaries for Israeli television. One of his most famous and controversial documentaries of that time was Yomán Sadé (Official Campaign Review), shot during the Lebanon War. The reception of the documentary that questioned the methods of military occupation used by his country, forced him to leave to Paris.

His constant sight to the memory of the Jewish people led him to make the film Esther, based on the character of the Old Testament of the Bible, which is characterized by her tenacity, courage and wisdom to represent the imagination of the Jewish culture. During this period of self-exile he made ??several documentaries and experimental films, including Pineapple, which is a documentary that explores through humour the process of growing and marketing of pineapple.

In the late 90s he came back to his country, settling in his native Haifa where he started the most fertile creative period of his career, shooting nearly 15 films, among them, there are the famous trilogy of cities in Israel: Devarin, Yom Kippur and Kadosh.

The impact that causes the attack of September 11, 2001 on the Twin Towers in New York, takes him to make the film project about the tragedy that changed the urban and mental landscape of New York.

In his last films he takes up again his inquisitive view about the Israel complex political relations with neighboring countries and mutations in the collective dreams that led to several generations to build a powerful state in the desert. Promised Land and Free Zone are part of a trilogy that taps into the reality of the border conflicts, which oppose the right to live in peace with the communities living in a continuous area, where the only barrier is the intolerance in power.

For further info: http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fo3/low/programme/index.php?page=nav.inc.php&id_eve=3225

Nancy Guzman

Gitai has been considered one of the exponents of Art-Film, his films have been the subject of retrospectives in the main museums around the world, so that attending this show at the Palais de Tokyo is a privilege if you are in Paris. And to celebrate Paris and Gitai, you can do it in one of the apartments in Paris?

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Translated by: Maria
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In the beautiful and disconcerting book The Green Log, Samoan writer Albert Hanover gives a list of his most treasured books. Though there’s no reason to believe that the list had any particular oder, but in eighth place was a copy of Historia Calamitatum by Pedro Abelardo (1079-1142), which had notes written in Latin in the margin by Petrarch.

Even though Abelardo believed in the philosophies of the time, it’s certainly also true that he has passed through history just as marginally as those notes made by the famous author of Canzoniere – rather than the brilliant, logical man who invoked Guillermo de Champeaux to question the universe, he is more famous for being the co-author of an epistolary correspondence which is one of the most powerful, and moving pieces of autobiography in the history of Western literature.

Though the story of Eloísa and Abelardo has declined somewhat in popularity with the passing of the centuries (perhaps because it didn’t reflect the notions of “courtly love” which prevailed at the end of the 12th century, and which came to define Western love) – nevertheless, it’s impact on life and poetry of the Middle Ages is hard to overstate. It’s about a love story which quickly became the stuff of legend, through the first-person narrative of the protagonists.

When Abelardo falls in love with the niece of his landlord, the young and brilliant Eloísa, famous for her knowledge of the Hebrew and classic Greek and Latin languages, he is at the height of his career. Not only is he the most respected and admired professor in Paris, a hugely successful poet, but also the leader of the countercultural goliardo movement, avant la letter.

Eloísa teaches him about love, and changes his life. They have a son, evocatively named Astrolabio, and marry in secret – but Abelardo kept a distance as he didn’t want to ruin his career. Eloísa’s uncle, Fulberto, decides to take revenge on what he believes is abandonment, and, along with a few other men, breaks into Abelardo’s bedroom one night and attack him.

Abelardo then retires to an abbey, after forcing Eloísa to become a nun at the Argenteuil convent. From the convent, she writes him bold, brave letters in which, far from expressing any regret at the passionate love they had shared, defend it – as something beautiful and pure which transcended religion. And it was only until after the death of Abelardo that she truly accepted Christ as her spouse, ending up an abbess, and revolutionarily demanding a different set of rules for women within monastic life.

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Paul Oilzum

Since 1817, the two bodies, which were buried together in 1164, have rested in the same grave at the Père- Lachaise cemetery. It’s a beautiful place to visit when you are renting apartments in Paris

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Translated by: Poppy
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Androgyny was introduced as a common fact of fashion in the nineties, when Kate Moss upended the parameters of beauty with her chic “junkie” style and her skinny silhouette. Since then a certain ambiguity gender is an integral part of the sartorial world, the “boyfriend look” or “dandy chic” are just giving proof that women can also wear a masculine look without losing some of their sensuality.

However, in recent seasons we have found a new specimen, which fills the front pages of some of the most prestigious journals of the scene. Incredibly ambiguous beings, with full lips and very long eyelashes, and in turn of an undoubted masculinity, which leaves us astounded. I’m talking about the beautiful faces of gorgeous supermodel Lea T and Andrej Pejic who have monopolized the top fashion publications.

T Lea is transsexual and Andrej Pejic a young girl/boy of 18 years who experiences with its femininity and masculinity. That brings us to the following question: Has the third sex finally been established as a common fact in our culture?

The fact that the airline P.C. Air has hired transsexual hostesses seems to underline the fact that the third sex is completely accepted in our society.

The Spanish publication “Candy” was released in 2009 and is the first magazine dedicated to celebrating the cross-dressing, transsexuality and androgyny as manifestations of diverse lifestyles. There we met some of our most beautiful models in the world dressed in silk and feathers – stereotypes about cross-dressing aside.

We may actually be witnessing a paradigm shift with regard to acceptance of the third sex gender in our society. Maybe all these stories are not mere publicity events to draw attention.

Heloise Battista

Rent apartments in Paris and enjoy the drag culture in this beautiful city, home to transsexuals and show-business people.

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Translated by: Maria
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