Barbizon Rallye - 3 : French Barbizon School of Painting Game Created by Ruth Paget

Rallye: The French Barbizon School of Painting Game Created by Ruth Paget

What are the Characteristics of the Barbizon School of Painting?

-Painting in the “plein air” or outdoors

-Color palette limited to browns and colors mixed with black tints or shades

-Subject matter limited to the environs of the village of Barbizon, which is close to the Forest of Fontainebleau

-Pastoral or country scenes of traditional France before technology, especially trains, changed how agriculture was done and the number of people visiting the Fontainebleau area where the village of Barbizon is located

-Willingness to teach younger painters techniques related to working outdoors such as:

-how to handle light

-how to draw and paint groups of elements such as trees in forests that do not have a uniform outline

-how to render atmospheric effects on how subjects look

Who were the Main Artists Associated with the French Barbizon School of Painting?

-Jean-François Millet

(1814 – 1875)

-Charles-François Daubigny

(1817 – 1878)

-Théodore Rousseau

(1812 – 1867)

Use your iPhone to do Online Research on the Barbizon School Painters

All rallyes feature several games and activities, if they are any good.  Everyone likes to learn how to use new technology, especially young people, who can use this new tech skills to perform their jobs more efficiently.

Use your iPhone to look up the following paintings by Rousseau, Millet, and Daubigny, who are the main painters of the French Barbizon School of Painting:

Try to identify the main characteristics of the Barbizon School of Painting as you look at these paintings.

Théodore Rousseau’s Paintings

-Evening

1842 – 1843

Toledo Museum of Art

-Edge of the Forest – Sun Setting

1845 – 1846

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

-Climbing Path, Forest of Fontainebleau

1848 – 1850

Jill Newhouse Gallery

--Brook in the Forest of Fontainebleau

1849

The Hague, Netherlands

-Morning Effect

circa 1850

Norton Simon Foundation in Pasadena, California

Jean-François Millet Paintings

-Potato Planters

1861

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

-The Sower

1850

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

-Shepherdess with her Flock

1863

Musée d’ Orsay, Paris, France

-Spring at Barbizon

1873

Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

--The Gleaners

1857

Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Charles-François Daubigny

-Riverbank with Fowl

1868

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

-The Farm

1855

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

-Washerwoman

1861

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

-The Willows

1864

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

-The Eagle’s Nest in the Forest of Fontainebleau

1844

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

There are various ways to find information online.  Results for your searches will vary, but try to check at least 3 sources for answers.

Government results are usually the best resource followed by universities.  Organizations and businesses do not necessarily have the correct information due to bias.

This activity is basic information literacy game that you can play on your phone or laptop computer.

Villanelle Poetry-Writing Activity

Traditional pastoral or country scenes characterize the subject matter of the villanelle poem.  Villanelles are not “Barbizon School Poems,” but the subject matter is the same.  They were written outdoors just as the Barbizon School painters worked outdoors.

Villanelles were created in 1606.  This form of poetry is also popular in Spain and England.

They are made up of 19 lines of 5 tercets followed by 1 quatrain.

There is a villanelle explanation and suggested exercises for this form of poetry and many others in the following book:

The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets who Teach by Robin Behn

Coming up next – Drawing Lessons and a few lagniappes

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Barbizon Rallye - 2 : Food and Music Suggested by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Rallye: French Barbizon Painting School Game Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Rallye Set-Up for Teens and Older

Armchair and in-country travelers to France and art lovers everywhere can do this rallye (aristocratic, junior cocktail party) with a French buffet (see below), activities for young and old, dancing, singing, poetry writing, and art activities.

Matrons organize these parties and play music they like to dance to in the dining room while the teens and college grads dance in the salon (living room).  (Sometimes they laugh about mom’s music, too.)

I would hand out lyric sheets for the music, so everyone could learn the words and rhythms of several languages.  Rallye participants can appear to effortlessly dance and sing to these artists when they go to corporate office parties and nightclubs with a little practice:

Eros Ramatozzi (sings in Italian and Spanish)

Beyoncé (sings in English and Spanish)

Céline Dion (sings in French and English)

Madonna (sings in English and encourages lots of dancing)

Tina Turner (sings in English and also encourages lots of dancing)

MC Solaar (French Rapper of African origin)

Dio (Canadian who sings in English with songs that can bring out the Sans Culotte Revolutionary in even aristocrats)

Jean-Michel Jarre (For his French Electronika album featuring various artists)

Rachid Taha (French rapper with Algerian ancestry, who sings in French and Arabic)

Joan Armatrading (Sings in British English)

Falco (Austrian singer who sang in German and English)

Hand out lyric sheets, so rallye participants can learn the rhythms and words to these songs in Arabic, American and British English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

Rallye Buffet Food Items and Drinks

Rallyes are not strong on food usually, because the teens and college grads want to look good in their designer clothes and not stain them for photographs. 

However, I think there are many non-messy nutritious items that you can serve at rallyes in homes or on picnics as you tour the village of Barbizon and the Forest at Fontainebleau to see first hand what the Barbizon painters wanted to preserve in their paintings.

I would serve food items such as the following:

Baguette Sandwiches - cut these into 2-inch pieces, so you can mix and match a variety of them

Jambon-fromage – (ham and thin slices of Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun)

Jardinière – (seasonal vegetables with homemade mayonnaise made of egg yolks and olive or sunflower oil)

Thon – (baked tuna fillet with homemade mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato)

Fromage – (Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun with butter)

Jambon – Beurre – (ham with butter)

In France, you can buy sandwiches like the ones above at almost any bakery.  The chain Chez Paul sells these sandwiches in almost all the malls of France for in-country tourists, who are looking for a quick bite to eat as they purchase souvenirs. 

The French do not subsist on sandwiches alone.  After going to the bakery, they go to the “traiteur” known as a “delicatessen” in the United States or “feinkost” in Germany for salads to go with sandwiches.

You can buy the following salads at a traiteur for your rallye buffet table.  They are not very expensive or difficult to make at home, though, if you know how to cook.  Most of them can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature.  They are also surprisingly healthy for you:

Champignons à la Grecque (Mushrooms in the Greek Style) – Despite the name of this dish, this dish is French.  It is a pickled salad using Parisian button mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions.  The pickling comes from boiling the ingredients briefly in vinegar and lemon juice with olive oil added at the end.  Pickling these ingredients keeps them from spoiling quickly in the heat.

Moroccan Tangerine, Crushed Walnut, and Ice Berg Lettuce Salad with Orange-Blossom Water Dressing – This salad is modified from Paula Wolfert’s recipe in Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco.

Steamed Carrot Purée with Cayenne Pepper to Spread on Baguette Slices – serve this item like hummus

Baked, Peeled, and Sliced Pepper (Chiles) Salad with Olive Oil Dressing – This dish is dressed lightly with olive oil

Boiled Brown Lentil Salad with Lemon Juice, Olive Oil, and Cumin – this is an Egyptian salad that many people in Provence also eat

2-inch Sections of Vietnamese Imperial Rolls – these rolls usually contain shrimp, pork, rice noodle, and cilantro inside a rice paper cover – Vietnam was once part of the French colony of Indochina. 

Patatas Bravas – this dish is from Spain where many French people go on vacation.  You cut potatoes into cubes and fry them in olive oil until cooked.  Then, you sprinkle cayenne and sea salt on them.  They are served at room temperature with toothpicks for easy serving on trays.

There are many great appetizer ideas in:

Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean Cookery

Clifford Wright’s The Little Foods of the Mediterranean: 500 Fabulous Recipes for Antipasti, Tapas, Hors d’Oeuvre, Meze, and More

Culinary Institute of America’s Hors d’Oeuvre at Home with the Culinary Institute of America

All of these French rallyes have dainty desserts.  The teens and college grads do not eat them usually; the chaperones eat them with coffee between making introductions of guests as they arrive to other guests invited to the group.

The rallye organizers usually introduce each guest to different groups, let them know where the bathrooms are so they can freshen up, and invite them to get something to eat and drink when they feel like it.

The desserts are usually items such as:

-small fruit tarts with pastry cream bottoms

-éclairs with chocolate pastry cream filling

-Napoleon pastries (Mille-Feuille layered phyllo pastries with pastry cream)

Drinks for a Mixed-Ages Rallye in France:

Drinks for a mixed-ages rallye would be Italian and French sodas with a non-alcoholic punch.  Non-alcoholic punches are usually made beforehand with ingredients such as mango nectar, Grenadine syrup, and carbonated water.

You keep these punches refrigerated until serving with one set out on a tray to show what the punch cocktail looks like garnished.  Punches are usually served in triangular-shaped glasses and are usually garnished with a sword skewer of Maraschino cherries and pineapple slices.

Obviously, what you do for a French Barbizon School of Painting Rallye Game can be done indoors or in th “plein air” or outside as they painted.

Final Question – “What are the characteristics of the Barbizon School, especially those that differentiate it from the Impressionists who also painted outside?

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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Barbizon Rallye - 1 - French Fontainebleau-Area Painting School - Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

French Barbizon School of Painting Rallye Game by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

What is a “rallye?”

In France, aristocratic women organize junior cocktail parties for teens and college students called “rallyes.”  The people who are not invited to these events call them “dating services for the aristo-turds” as they jealously leaf through the pages of Paris Match magazine.

The young rallye participants pictured in Paris Match have the designer clothes they are wearing mentioned in the magazine, which helps launch many of the young socialites into modeling, public relations, and merchant-elite sales careers.

I knew these rallyes were really much more than dating services when I lived in Paris during the 1990s.  French rallyes are like Southern cotillions for debutants, where you are supposed to show off poise, dancing skills, conversational skills, and make-up and hairstyling skills to help promote Southern business in your lovely, tailored clothing. 

I understood very well why there was “Rallye Rage” among the Americans with teen and college-age children in Paris, who had obtained posh jobs, but were not invited into French families to celebrate holidays.  American expatriates are valued in France, but the French know they leave and often do not keep up their relationships.

I already had a French husband, but my “get-off-your-high-horse-Pennington-family” response to this rallye situation was to organize better rallyes than the French aristocratic women did in their 8^th arrondisement apartments (very Colonial French addresses and attitudes).

I organized activities for the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris as Vice President of the Young Executive Program that:

-helped young executives make sales through networking breakfasts, dinners, cocktails, and art gallery vernissages (openings)

-provided a sales forum for sales presentations

-taught Americans about French culture through organizing speakers’ programs by American and French public relations firms in France

-provided young executives with media exposure through biography and business write ups in the Young Executive Program’s newsletter published by the American Chamber of Commerce

I know these events were popular, especially power breakfasts, because we had an upsurge of French and European members.  They were give bios in the newsletter and encouraged to speak about their businesses as well. 

We had a great meet-and-greet committee together as well, which matched up members who wanted to meet people from particular industries at all events.

The sales success of French and European members of the Young Executive Program encouraged matrons from my husband Laurent’s business school (Rouen Business School – MBA in Finance and Accounting), engineering school (Compiegne – MS in Computer Engineering), and university (St. Nazaire – MS in Physics) to invite us to a rallye for current students at these schools to share some tips for young people to make their first sales.

While Laurent was being a social butterfly teaching his classmates the dance moves he learned in Chicago at the Smart Bar, Octagon, Metro, and Neo nightclubs on dates with me, I talked with the matrons about the importance of creating portfolios of completed work with dollar amounts attached about sales generated, profits earned, or money saved by implementing the project.

I also talked with the matrons about how to organize sales strategies for new graduates at business cocktails, which resemble rallyes like the one they were holding that evening.  I also explained that we attended cocktail parties after work, but we were still working.  It was not party time!!!

Laurent and I both worked in the finance industry in Paris; Laurent in banking while I worked for audit and consulting firms (communications and business development for Japanese investment in France – my use for a degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Chicago).

While serving current clients, we were expected to work on new business development through volunteer activities, learning languages to serve new client markets, mastering new technology, and attending cocktail parties and other networking events. 

The French matrons began to understand why American moms were upset that their teens were not included in the rallyes, which are very important for teaching basic social skills for business.

I also said that the Young Executive Program was sort of a Parisian rallye, but more oriented towards business.  We all laughed, and I sallied out to dance with my husband after eating some Italian breadsticks and drinking some punch.

Up next – how to set up a French Barbizon Painting Rallye Game to prepare for a trip to France or travel via armchair.

To be continued….

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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