Arles, two-thousand years ago was an important Roman city. It still has the ruins of a coliseum that used to be able to seat ten thousand people. Up the cobbled street from where we’re staying, we paid it a mid-morning visit.
Now bullfights take place in the arena. From what I’ve read they have a benign variation on the blood sport that involves the toreadors attempting to unravel a ribbon from the bull’s horns. To honor their most famous resident I imagine cutting the ear off the bull was considered, but times have changed.
Within a spear-chucking distance of the coliseum are the ruins of a Roman amphitheater.
The size of the columns upstage give one an idea of spectacles that must have been presented. No spartan Greek tragedy here. The multistory backdrop had performers lowered by ropes in a kind of mythological Cirque de Soleil. Two thousand years ago, the citizens of Arles didn’t lack for entertainment.
Rain had been forecast and it was starting drizzle as we left the amphitheater. We went down a narrow lane of pricey boutiques that only a Roman wouldn’t consider in bad taste and took a few twisted turns that had us ending up outside the Van Gogh café.
It’s the same café that he painted for his “Café de nuit”. In his words, “It’s one of the ugliest pictures I have done.” Posterity has begged to differ. In keeping with the color tone of the painting, the present awning is a yellow that even stands out in the rain.
The rain was starting to intensify, so we ate lunch under the awning of the restaurant next door. We lingered over our meal which was a change in our travel routine since we usually skip the midday eats in favor of an early dinner. If I were still drinking I might have been there all afternoon. On the other hand, even after a couple glasses of wine Ella was still antsy to get a move on. So we unfurled our umbrellas and decided to go to the nearest museum which was two minutes away.
This was the Musée Réattu named after Jacques Réattu, a late-eighteenth century painter who was born in Arles. The first portion of museum was devoted to Réattu’s work which I found extremely amusing given the timing of the French Revolution and the development of his work. Réattu was like his contemporary, Jacques-Louis David, a painter in the neoclassical vein. Only Réattu, unlike David, had a hard time keeping up with current events. The Bastille had been stormed and the French Republic established, but during those three years this is what he had to show.
He was, sort of like Jacob, asleep. Then, by 1794, he got with the program.
Only Liberty by then had turned into the Terror. There was one last chuckle with the viewing of a painting he did in 1796 that shows the Acibiades model faking the position of the deadly arrow. I’ve had actors on stage pull this number and been more believable.
The Musée, however, has many floors. On one of them there was the work of artists Réattu collected, like Salvatore Rosa.
On another floor there were paintings from artists who had lived in or were influenced by Arles, like Picasso.
And then there was the room dedicated to a sound installation that recorded Arles traffic noise. I mean the patrons behind this museum didn’t miss a beep.
But Ella and I both agreed that everything we had seen was upstaged by the gargoyles above the courtyard actually functioning as water spouts.
With water as the theme, we went and checked out the ruins of Constantine’s Baths. Everyone agrees that the Romans didn’t mess around when it came to rinsing away imperial anxiety with a little steam and quick dip into a pool and Emperor Constantine I was no exception.
From Constantine’s Baths we weathered the walkway on the banks of the Rhône as the rain continued to fall.
