ROUDELET FÉLIBREN
This group is from Marseille, located in the south-east of France, a region that probably remains one of the most cultural, original and rich in the country. It extends to the east of the Rhone at the foot of the first foothills of the Alps. It goes up north along the river valley and ends in the Mediterranean, either by white limestone or red granite cliffs, and sometimes by almost desert sandbars, which are those of the Camargue when the exhausted and vast Rhone flows into the sea.
It is here that one of the most brilliant civilizations was born and developed. Born of the Greek and Latin influence, made beautiful by the triumphant Renaissance, proud to have resisted the Barbary who threatened it for centuries, it developed a language, knowledge, poetry, a sense of freedom and a taste for good living that made it a model for fifteen centuries. It was the land of courtly love, poetic games and love lessons.
Provence gave France many famous writers who are always read with the same pleasure, even when tragedy is mixed with laughter. But it saw the birth of a poet who brought back the regions of France to their own origins, the revival of dances and songs from the past, respect for the customs of yesteryear and pride in his native country. This poet was called Frédéric MISTRAL. He gave birth to folklore in the broad and noble sense of the word. This group is one of his direct heirs. In this school he drew the dances of the sea, some of which are of Greek origin and others inspired by the sailing navy in recent centuries. Others carried by the waves and merchants are of English origin. He also found the seventeenth-century dances that are court dances. And many others still who speak of love, sometimes courteous, sometimes naughty.
Add some warrior dances of the time when we fought hard against the Turks and also some pagan reminiscences where the sun holds a special place, and the Christmas holidays of Provence to the colored santons. And this is the whole story of the small people of Provence, its sailors and its nobles, told in images by this group full of life, enthusiasm and talent. The group also sings traditional tunes of the country of Provence of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Its musicians play the tambourine and galoubet whose origins are unknown, so many sailors from all directions who passed by with their music.
It is therefore a very complete show, a suite of remarkably staged paintings, with a great variety of images, which honour the French tradition and the richness of this Provencal culture where they blend, They are preserved and ennobled by the influences of so many peoples over a long history.
And in the sun of Provence, girls will always be beautiful under their lace headdresses and poetry will continue to bloom in the blue fields of lavender or in the sound of waves singing in white limestone their love romances.
