Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Jean Cocteau and Milly la Fôret


Jean Cocteau spent from 1947 ,when he purchased a house until his death in 1963 at Milly la Fôret. The village ( really town) dates from medieval times and older and still has a medieval market structure standing. The house is delightful ,situated overlooking a moat and small towered building and with a large garden. Here Cocteau made some of his most renowned work and indeed some of the rooms  still have their original furnishings along with many desks littered with books and artists' materials. I dream of having such a house... sigh....The top three photos are  Cocteau's desk, his view over the back garden and a view of the  side garden looking towards the house. The gardener was busy cleaning up the garden.



The house  has also had some of the spaces converted to exhibit some of Cocteau's art work and also to show videos of  some of his movies and interviews.






Cocteau also painted a small chapel known as ChapelleSainte Blaise de Simples.




Cocteau is actually buried in the chapel along with his adopted son Edouard Dermit. The Chapel was part of a larger complex devoted to  caring for lepers and was  run by the Knights Templar. All that remained when it was restored, were the chapel walls which were painted by Cocteau with medicinal herbs  and the resurrection. The Chapel is simple, quiet and magical and surrounded by a garden devoted to medicinal herbs. Between the  campanule fausse raiponce and the campanule â feuilles rondes i found this wonderful spiders's web. It wasn't like anything I had seen before- it almost looked like an  extremely fun spun bonded polyester and the water droplets weighed heavy and sat like shining irregular crystals in the web- ohhh to make such fabric  wouldn't it be wonderful? I just have no idea how you would create the droplet effect.














7 comments:

Vernon Sims - Editor said...

i am amazed at how you find the nost interesrting t. cocteau and contempories collette et al the american expatriots of the 30s and 40s was the topic of my literature cokkege final research cocteau viewed mirrors as doorways into the subconscious even usubfg nirrors in his films precursing fellini and renoir whose madwoman of chaillot is a gavorite filn of mine

frazzledsugarplummum said...

Thanks for this post. I enjoyed learning about this artist.

Carol said...

lovely photos of a fascinating place. Last year we visited the asylum in St Remy de Provence where Van Gogh spent much of his time

Clare Wassermann said...

very interesting - I will look further into him

Shirley Goodwin said...

A year ago, I was in France and your post makes me really miss it. Lovely photos.

Catherine G 78 said...

Hello Dijanne,
I know Milly la Fôret (My husband's family was living very near). The market is very "beautiful" (it's not the right word)
I'did not know all you say about Cocteau in this town.... what a shame on me....
I'm going to cross Paris and have a look.
Thank you for coming from Australia and telling me what I have next door... LOL
Thank you for sharing once more.
Amicalement,
Catherine

Jay said...

Those are some great photos.