The MHEU | One last bouquet or pyrotechnic art

Fr : version française / En: english version

.mheu, Historical Museum of the Urban Environment

Powerful and immaterial

On earth as it is in heaven

Taming fire

Quest for Fire

The raw and the cooked

Roasting, frying, grilling, boiling and braising

Household arts

It's Winter, light the fire!

Heating the artist's workshop

Adding fuel to the fire

From earthenware jug to fridge

Alchemy

Vulcan's forges

Magic of transparency

The Candelabra's luster

The electricity fairy

City lights

The steam horse

Boom!

3, 2, 1...blastoff!

Fear in the city

Caught in the cross fire

Auto-da-fé

Show me a sign

Witches and the stake

Up in smoke

Saint John's bonfires

Like a great sun

One last bouquet

The Chinese shine brightly in the firmament of pyrotechnic art which is only natural considering that they invented gunpowder. The magnificent multicolor light flashes and deafening detonations of fireworks make this type of entertainment extremely popular. Kings and republics of all kinds have always used pyrotechnics to symbolize the magnificence of their power, blind to the inherently fleeting character of such displays.

Pendant le Feu mainte Bergère lestement bondissoient

Allons morgué, compère Blaise
Vite ébaudissons-nous ;
Rions, chantons, faisons les fous,
Puisque le Roy nous fait bien aise :
J'allons chanter soir & matin,
Vive le Roy ! la Reine & le Dauphin.

Les Échevins de cette Ville
Ont signalé du mieux
Leur zèle, leur amour, leurs vœux

Pour Louis & pour sa Famille,
Et pour la prise de Menin.
Vive le Roy ! la Reine & le Dauphin.

Ils ont fait un Feu d'Artifice,
Ainsi comme à Paris
Autour du Feu voloient les ris,
De notre amour le tendre indice.
Ils avoient écrit à la main :
Vive le Roy ! la Reine & le Dauphin.

J'ons bu tous à la régalade
A la santé du Roi
C'étoit du Vin de bon alloi,
J'avons sablé mainte rasade,
Je chantions, le verre à la main,
Vive le Roi ! la Reine & le Dauphin.

Pendant le Feu mainte Bergère
Lestement bondissoient :
D'un pied léger elles dansoient
Sur le gazon & la fougère ;
Et chantoient d'un air gaillardin :
Vive le Roy ! la Reine & le Dauphin

Anonymous, 1744 : A song expressing the feelings of zeal, joy and love that exploded in the city of Saint Denys (today Saint Denis) in response to the conquests and recovery from illness of our August Monarch.

Cai Guo-Qiang, an artist recognized throughout the world except in France, uses black gunpowder in a highly idiosyncratic way to set off fireworks and create mind-boggling pictorial art works.

Transient Rainbow

Cai Guo-Qiang

The contemporary Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou. A teenager during the Cultural Revolution, he received an education in the arts in his native land. In 1986, he left to live in Japan. There he experimented with the use of gunpowder, first to make plastic art and later for large-scale explosions. Ten years later, Cai Guo-Qiang moved to New York, where he produced a varied, eclectic body of work. A renowned contemporary artist, Cai Guo-Qiang enjoyed the ambiguous privilege of designing the firework spectacles for the 2008 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. The recipient of many international awards, his work was featured in a retrospective presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York in 2008, then at the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum in March 2009.

.Fire

One last bouquet