Michael Francis Gibson
Encyclopedia
Michael Francis Gibson, art critic, art historian, writer and independent scholar, published regularly in the International Herald-Tribune, 1969–2004 and occasionally in other publications in English (the New York Times, Art in America
, Art News), and French (L’Oeil, Connaissance des Arts etc.,).
Michael Francis Gibson, was born18 July 1929, inside the American Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, the son of American Ambassador Hugh S. Gibson and his Belgian wife Ynès Reyntiens. After schooling in eight different establishments, six different countries and three different languages (including the Collège Jean de Brébeuf
in Montreal and the University of Louvain
in Belgium), he settled in Paris in 1958 where he has lived ever since. Married, four children (two of a former marriage).
He translated the Oxford Greek scholar E.R. Dodds' "The Greeks and the irrational" into French in view of its publication by Aubier-Montaigne in Paris in 1963 ("Les Grecs et l'irrationnel"). The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
termed it “one of the key books of the present century.”
That same year Gibson founded the Collège Musical de Trie in the small village of Trie-la-Ville, to the north of Paris. In this private institution the musicologist Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume taught the interpretation of early music (16th to 18th centuries) according to principles laid down in period documents.
The College was visited by such major figures as Yehudi Menuhin
, who repeatedly called upon Geoffroy-Dechaume to participate in the Bath festival; Pierre Boulez
, who marked the bicentennial of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau
at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris in 1964 by conducting Geoffroy-Dechaume’s transcription into modern notation of the opera "Hyppolyte et Aricie"; the guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream
who gave a memorable concert in the village church; the conductor André Jouve and his wife, the singer Marie-Thérèse Kahn; the harpsichordist George Malcolm
; and the pianist Yvonne Lefébure
who was a frequent visitor with her husband, the musicologist Fred Goldbeck.
The young English harpsichord-maker, Anthony Sidey, who had just completed his apprenticeship with the Dolmetsch
firm in Surrey, opened a workshop in Trie-la-Ville in 1964. Four years later, after the music center closed, he settled in Paris, where he is still working.
In 1969, Gibson was hired as art critic by the International Herald Tribune
. He wrote regularly for that paper for the next 35 years. He also published a number of monographs on Peter Bruegel, Marcel Duchamp
and Dada
, Symbolist art (Symbolism
), Paul Gauguin
, Odilon Redon
and others.
In 1996 Gibson published a detailed analysis of Peter Bruegel’s 124 x 170 cm, 500-character painting, “The Way to Calvary” (Kunsthistorisches Museum
, Vienna
) under the title "Le Portement de croix de Pierre Bruegel l'Aîné" (Noêsis, Paris). He translated the book into English and it was published under the title "The Mill and the Cross
" in 2001 (Acatlos, Lausanne).
In January 2011, Lech Majewski’s feature-length film with that title (with Charlotte Rampling
, Michael York
and Rutger Hauer) was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, in Sundance, Utah. The film is a narrative recreation of Bruegel’s painting which (according to Gibson) evokes the sort of scene that Bruegel himself too often had occasion to witness: the execution of a Flemish Protestant by the militia of the King of Spain.
Writing in Variety
on 27 January 2011, Dennis Harvey hailed it as: “An extraordinary imaginative leap, Lech Majewski's "The Mill and the Cross" combines old and new technologies allowing the viewer to live inside the painting—Flemish master Pieter Bruegel's 1564 "The Procession to Calvary," an epic canvas depicting both Christ's crucifixion and the artist's homeland brutalization by Spanish occupiers. Neither conventional costume drama nor abstract objet d'art, this visually ravishing, surprisingly beguiling gamble won't fit any standard arthouse niche. Still it could prove the Polish helmer's belated international breakthrough.”
In 2002, Gibson published "Ces lois inconnues" (Métailié, Paris, in French), an anthropological essay in which he examines what people actually have in mind when they loosely talk of the “meaning of life.” Such “meaning,” he argues, depends on the human capacity to conceive an indefinite goal that is inherent to each culture and is thus held in common by the entire community."
In 2007, under the pseudonym of Miguel Errazu, he published "The Riddle of the Seal", the first volume of a fantasy trilogy¸ "Chronicles of the Greater Dream" (The University of Levana Press, London). The second volume, "The Sleepers of Lethe", appeared in 2010. The third volume,"The Garden of All the Dream," should appear in due course.
Central to the trilogy is the question of what is actually happening to the imagination in the contemporary world. The forgotten continentis in which the story unfolds is the homeland of the golden Emblemata or Living Statues. This strange and inexplicable natural/cultural phenomenon, has been produced for thousands of years in the great imaginary continent known, the author claims, "since highest Antiquity as the Third Hemisphere (and more recently as Gondwana)."
The trilogy was conceived as playful variation on the anthropological/philosophical speculation of "Ces lois inconnues", touching upon the part played by the purposeful imagination in the overall process of cognition, but also in the shaping the individual person and in keeping society on an even keel. Upon being questioned about the significance of his trilogy, Gibson replied that his theme could be summed up in the words of Michael Steinberg: "The pretensions of language have become and obstacle to human life."
Since 1956, Gibson has published a number of books, articles, essays and poems in both English and French.
*Philippe Soupault, Poet and cofounder of Surrealism with André Breton
Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
, Art News), and French (L’Oeil, Connaissance des Arts etc.,).
Michael Francis Gibson, was born18 July 1929, inside the American Embassy in Brussels, Belgium, the son of American Ambassador Hugh S. Gibson and his Belgian wife Ynès Reyntiens. After schooling in eight different establishments, six different countries and three different languages (including the Collège Jean de Brébeuf
Jean de Brébeuf
Jean de Brébeuf was a Jesuit missionary, martyred in Canada on March 16, 1649.-Early years:Brébeuf was born in Condé-sur-Vire, Normandy, France. He was the uncle of the fur trader Georges de Brébeuf. He studied near home at Caen. He became a Jesuit in 1617, joining the Order...
in Montreal and the University of Louvain
Catholic University of Leuven
The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...
in Belgium), he settled in Paris in 1958 where he has lived ever since. Married, four children (two of a former marriage).
He translated the Oxford Greek scholar E.R. Dodds' "The Greeks and the irrational" into French in view of its publication by Aubier-Montaigne in Paris in 1963 ("Les Grecs et l'irrationnel"). The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
termed it “one of the key books of the present century.”
That same year Gibson founded the Collège Musical de Trie in the small village of Trie-la-Ville, to the north of Paris. In this private institution the musicologist Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume taught the interpretation of early music (16th to 18th centuries) according to principles laid down in period documents.
The College was visited by such major figures as Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, who repeatedly called upon Geoffroy-Dechaume to participate in the Bath festival; Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, who marked the bicentennial of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris in 1964 by conducting Geoffroy-Dechaume’s transcription into modern notation of the opera "Hyppolyte et Aricie"; the guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream
Julian Bream
Julian Bream, CBE is an English classical guitarist and lutenist and is one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century. He has also been successful in renewing popular interest in the Renaissance lute....
who gave a memorable concert in the village church; the conductor André Jouve and his wife, the singer Marie-Thérèse Kahn; the harpsichordist George Malcolm
George Malcolm
George John Huntley Malcolm was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal from 1909 to 1922, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Tobias C. Norris....
; and the pianist Yvonne Lefébure
Yvonne Lefébure
Yvonne Lefébure was a French pianist.Born in Ermont, she studied with Alfred Cortot at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in piano and numerous other subjects. She soon appeared with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux and the Orchestre des Concerts Colonne and in recital. She...
who was a frequent visitor with her husband, the musicologist Fred Goldbeck.
The young English harpsichord-maker, Anthony Sidey, who had just completed his apprenticeship with the Dolmetsch
Dolmetsch
, and means "translator", and refers to:* Arnold Dolmetsch , was a French-born musician, instrument maker* Dolmetsch Early Music Festival...
firm in Surrey, opened a workshop in Trie-la-Ville in 1964. Four years later, after the music center closed, he settled in Paris, where he is still working.
In 1969, Gibson was hired as art critic by the International Herald Tribune
International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...
. He wrote regularly for that paper for the next 35 years. He also published a number of monographs on Peter Bruegel, Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
and Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, Symbolist art (Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
), Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
and others.
In 1996 Gibson published a detailed analysis of Peter Bruegel’s 124 x 170 cm, 500-character painting, “The Way to Calvary” (Kunsthistorisches Museum
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
) under the title "Le Portement de croix de Pierre Bruegel l'Aîné" (Noêsis, Paris). He translated the book into English and it was published under the title "The Mill and the Cross
The Mill and the Cross
The Mill and the Cross is a 2011 drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Way to Calvary, and based on Michael Francis Gibson's book The Mill and the Cross. The film was a...
" in 2001 (Acatlos, Lausanne).
In January 2011, Lech Majewski’s feature-length film with that title (with Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
, Michael York
Michael York (actor)
Michael York, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May , a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores...
and Rutger Hauer) was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, in Sundance, Utah. The film is a narrative recreation of Bruegel’s painting which (according to Gibson) evokes the sort of scene that Bruegel himself too often had occasion to witness: the execution of a Flemish Protestant by the militia of the King of Spain.
Writing in Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
on 27 January 2011, Dennis Harvey hailed it as: “An extraordinary imaginative leap, Lech Majewski's "The Mill and the Cross" combines old and new technologies allowing the viewer to live inside the painting—Flemish master Pieter Bruegel's 1564 "The Procession to Calvary," an epic canvas depicting both Christ's crucifixion and the artist's homeland brutalization by Spanish occupiers. Neither conventional costume drama nor abstract objet d'art, this visually ravishing, surprisingly beguiling gamble won't fit any standard arthouse niche. Still it could prove the Polish helmer's belated international breakthrough.”
In 2002, Gibson published "Ces lois inconnues" (Métailié, Paris, in French), an anthropological essay in which he examines what people actually have in mind when they loosely talk of the “meaning of life.” Such “meaning,” he argues, depends on the human capacity to conceive an indefinite goal that is inherent to each culture and is thus held in common by the entire community."
In 2007, under the pseudonym of Miguel Errazu, he published "The Riddle of the Seal", the first volume of a fantasy trilogy¸ "Chronicles of the Greater Dream" (The University of Levana Press, London). The second volume, "The Sleepers of Lethe", appeared in 2010. The third volume,"The Garden of All the Dream," should appear in due course.
Central to the trilogy is the question of what is actually happening to the imagination in the contemporary world. The forgotten continentis in which the story unfolds is the homeland of the golden Emblemata or Living Statues. This strange and inexplicable natural/cultural phenomenon, has been produced for thousands of years in the great imaginary continent known, the author claims, "since highest Antiquity as the Third Hemisphere (and more recently as Gondwana)."
The trilogy was conceived as playful variation on the anthropological/philosophical speculation of "Ces lois inconnues", touching upon the part played by the purposeful imagination in the overall process of cognition, but also in the shaping the individual person and in keeping society on an even keel. Upon being questioned about the significance of his trilogy, Gibson replied that his theme could be summed up in the words of Michael Steinberg: "The pretensions of language have become and obstacle to human life."
Since 1956, Gibson has published a number of books, articles, essays and poems in both English and French.
Publications
- A Study of Hebrew Thought, Claude TresmontantClaude TresmontantClaude Tresmontant was a French philosopher, Hellenist and theologian.- Biography :He taught medieval philosophy and philosophy of science at the Sorbonne. He was a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Science...
, (into English, Desclé and Co. 1960) - A translation of E.R. Dodds’ The Greeks and the Irrational (University of California Press, 1959) into French (Aubier-Montaigne, 1965 and subsequently Flammarion, Paris).
- Peter BrookPeter BrookPeter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
, after his return from Africa (The Drama Review, in 1973). - Peter Bruegel (in French Nouvelles Editions Françaises, Paris, 1980 and English Tabard Press, 1986)
- The Symbolists (French Nouvelles Editions Françaises, 1984, English Abrams, 1986)
- Les Horizons du Possible, (French, Ed. du Félin, Paris, 1984)
- Edo Murtic (French, Paris Art Center, 1989)
- Paul Gauguin (in English, French and Spanish, Polygrafa, Spain,1990)
- Duchamp-DadaDadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, (in French, Nouvelles Editions Françaises-Casterman, 1990) International Art Book Award of the Vasari Prize in 1991. - Symbolism (English, French, German and other languages, Taschen, 1994)
- Odilon RedonOdilon RedonBertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
(English, French, German and other languages, Taschen, 1995). - The Mill and the Cross, Peter Bruegel’s Way to Calvary, (in French, Noêsis, 1996 and in English, Acatos, Lausanne, 2001)
- Isia Leviant, Mains (French Cercle d’art, Paris, 1997)
- André Naggar, Images Mentales (English and French, Cercle d’art, 1998)
- Hanneke Beaumont (French, Cercle d’Art, Paris, 2001)
- Ces Lois Inconnues, an anthropological examination of what is meant by “the meaning of life”, (in French Métailié, Paris, 2002)
- Adam Henein (in English, French and Arabic, Skira, 2005)
- Gianguido Bonfanti (English, French and Portuguese, Acatos, 2005). I
- Zoran MusicZoran MušicZoran Mušič was a Slovenian painter. He spent half of his life living and working in Italy.-Life:Zoran Mušič was born in a Slovene-speaking family in Bukovica, a village in the Vipava Valley near Gorizia, in what was then the Austrian County of Gorizia and Gradisca...
(in French special edition of Connaissance des Arts, 1995).
Catalogue texts
- Zoran MusicZoran MušicZoran Mušič was a Slovenian painter. He spent half of his life living and working in Italy.-Life:Zoran Mušič was born in a Slovene-speaking family in Bukovica, a village in the Vipava Valley near Gorizia, in what was then the Austrian County of Gorizia and Gradisca...
, Museum of Fine Arts in Caen, France (1995), the Jewish Museum, New York, (2003) and the Jenisch Museum in Vevey, Switzerland (2003). - Louis ArchambaultLouis ArchambaultLouis Archambault, was a Quebec sculptor.Born in Montreal, Quebec, he won the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Allied Arts Medal in 1958.In 1968, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada....
(Canadian Cultural Center, Paris, 1980) - Jerzy Stajuda (Guimiot Gallery, Brussels, 1985)
- Miguel Rasero (Guimiot Gallery, 1986)
- Pierre AlechinskyPierre AlechinskyPierre Alechinsky is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to Tachisme, Abstract expressionism, and Lyrical Abstraction.Alechinsky was born in Brussels...
(Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1987) - Louis Le Broquy (Picasso Museum, Antibes, undated catalogue)
- Elie Abrahami (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1994)
- Jacques Zwobada (Seat of the United Nations, New York, 1996)
- Jean-Michel FolonJean-Michel FolonJean-Michel Folon was a Belgian artist, illustrator, painter, and sculptor. Folon was born in Uccle, Brussels, Belgium in 1934 where he studied architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc. In 1955 he settled in a gardener’s house in the outskirts of Paris. Over a period of five years he drew morning,...
– Travels (Olympic Museum, Lausanne, 1997) - Jean-Paul Agosti (Hospice St. Roch, Issoudun, France, 1998)
- Bang Hai Ja (Le Cercle d’Art, Paris, 2001)
- Izhar CohenIzhar CohenIzhar Cohen is an Israeli singer and actor.Representing Israel, he won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest with the group Alphabeta performing "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" with music by Nurit Hirsh and words by Ehud Manor...
(Municipal Art Gallery, Raanana, Israel, 2003).
Radio work
- Radio programs (Radio-Canada, France-Culture) devoted to artistic, cultural and philosophical issues, resulting from his 1975 meeting with the German philosopher Ernst Bloch, with Pierre Furlan and Peter Stein (subsequently published by Arno Münster in Tagträume vom Aufrechten Gang, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1977).
- André MalrauxAndré MalrauxAndré Malraux DSO was a French adventurer, award-winning author, and statesman. Having traveled extensively in Indochina and China, Malraux was noted especially for his novel entitled La Condition Humaine , which won the Prix Goncourt...
, French Minister of Culture - Simone SignoretSimone SignoretSimone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, for her role in Room at the Top...
and Yves Montand, actors - Joan MiróJoan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Artist - Zao Wou-ki, Painter.
- Vincent van Gogh Engineer and nephew of the painter
- Günther Grass, Writer
*Philippe Soupault, Poet and cofounder of Surrealism with André Breton
- Tadeusz KantorTadeusz KantorTadeusz Kantor was a Polish painter, assemblage artist, set designer and theatre director. Kantor is renowned for his revolutionary theatrical performances in Poland and abroad.- Life and career :...
, Theater director - Jean-Michel FolonJean-Michel FolonJean-Michel Folon was a Belgian artist, illustrator, painter, and sculptor. Folon was born in Uccle, Brussels, Belgium in 1934 where he studied architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc. In 1955 he settled in a gardener’s house in the outskirts of Paris. Over a period of five years he drew morning,...
, Artist - Hubert ReevesHubert Reeves-External links: *...
, Physicist - Sami-Ali, Psychoanalyst
- Vladimir JankelevitchVladimir JankélévitchVladimir Jankélévitch was a French philosopher and musicologist.- Biography :Jankélévitch was the son of Russian Jewish parents, who had emigrated to France....
, Philosopher - Evgen Bavčar, Blind photographer
- Jean ClairJean ClairJean Clair is the nom de plume of Gérard Régnier . He is an essayist, a polemicist, an art historian, an art conservator, and a member of the French Academy since May, 2008. He was, for many years, the director of the Picasso Museum in Paris...
, Museum curator - Jean-Louis Heim, Paleontologist
- Tomonobu Imamichi, Philosopher
- Arnold Mandel, Writer
- Jean Ladrière, Philosopher
- Jean-Pierre VernantJean-Pierre VernantJean-Pierre Vernant was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and society which would itself be influential among classical scholars...
, Greek scholar - Christian DotremontChristian DotremontChristian Dotremont, , was a Belgian painter and poet who was born in Tervuren, Belgium. He was a founding member of the group Cobra, and later became well known for his painted poems, which he called logograms....
, Artist and writer
Television and film
- An American in Paris and the Polish Question (TV Polonia 2000), two documentary films about Gibson by Stefan Szlachtycz.
- With Polish artist and director Lech Majewski, The Mill and the CrossThe Mill and the CrossThe Mill and the Cross is a 2011 drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting The Way to Calvary, and based on Michael Francis Gibson's book The Mill and the Cross. The film was a...
and 92-minute feature film with Charlotte Rampling, Michael York and Rutger Hauer.