Colmar Scenes

After the museum, we headed off on a sort of walking tour, mainly in search of a resto on one of the canals where we could have the local specialty, tarte flambee. There was much to see on the way, and back.

Frederic Bartholdi was from Colmar...we'll see more
from him

Many interesting houses, buildings along the
way...this one nearly Flemish

Remnant of the bygone

Never did get the story of this doozey...

Great carving here and there

So Voltaire lived in Colmar for a couple years after his break-up
with Frederick the Great; France's greatest thinker had a knack for
getting himself exiled and also getting exiled from his exiles

We think he lived here

Probably not here, although he did champion freedom
of expression...

Finally, the canal

And our restaurant on the left

Our tarte flambee, which we had regarded as a real discovery in 2011;
not so much in 2023; we should have ordered two; sort of like a pizza
but without tomato sauce; and too many onions...

More of the canal, with hundreds of uniform red love-locks; some
sort of city ordinance, we hypothesized; Voltaire probably would not
have approved

Still more of the canal, on which you can take boat rides, as in Brugge,
Amsterdam, Venice, Peoria...behind the canal is the old covered
market, restored and gentrified

And adorned by a Bartholdi fountain and sculpture

Thus

More attractive and/or interesting buildings

In the courtyard of the Bartholdi Museum, which we
eschewed

We have learned that if you look hard enough, you'll
always find an Art Nouveau building; here is Colmar's

Colmar's Unterlinden Museum: Other Stuff

It's really a fine city/regional museum, and we probably didn't do justice to its many other 15th and 16th century holdings. In addition to the paintings, there are numerous objects and collections of everyday life, household, weapons, viticulture, and so on, from neolithic times through the Romans and up through the early 20th century. We sorted of flitted around, too, trying to avoid the larger tour bus groups. 

In the old convent's cloister

"Swing and a miss"--not; alas, part of a quadriptych
of martyrs whose name I did not get; note Medieval
codpiece

Bergheim Altarpiece, attributed to Veit Wagner, late 15th, after an
engraving by Durer

In the household collections 

Beautiful 1647 harpsichord

Beautiful stove

Signage and bells

Fireplace backs

Don't lose the key

Circumcision, attributed to Ludwig Schongauer,
15th

Part of a whole room of Martin Schongauers and company

Resurrection series

Moving right along, this is the famous 3rd century local Roman floor
mosaic that was the core of the original museum's collection

Neolithic stuff

Marriage at Cana, German School, c. 1500

Portrait of a Lady, Holbein the Elder, early 16th

Cranach's Melancholia, after a Durer drawing; said to
be France's only Cranach; of course, Colmar was not in
France when Cranach painted it

Viticulture collection, including some barrels larger than our
camper

Celtic collection, including some nice gold

Rembrandt, Not a Self-Portrait, 1665

Gustave Dore, The Angel of Tobias, mid-19th

Monet, Valley of the Creuse, Sunset, 1889

And finally, Roault, his De Profundis, 1939

Colmar's Unterlinden Museum: The Isenheim Altarpiece

We visited Colmar in 2011 (https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/07/colmar.html; and https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/07/musee-unterlinden.html), and maybe earlier too, but wanted to return for the great art in its Unterlinden Museum and other well preserved sights. I did two Colmar blog posts in 2011, but back then we were way less into history of art and architecture and such things. And the Unterlinden Museum was vastly enlarged in the succeeding years, enabling far more of its collection to be displayed. The museum is probably the best in Alsace, especially its collection of paintings and such by Martin Schongauer, Durer's predecessor and inspiration. And plenty of other significant art too. But it is the Isenheim Altarpiece that is the museum's main attraction and claim to fame.

A few more words of explanation. The museum mainly occupies a 13th century Dominican sisters' convent. More recently, the old public baths were added to the complex. The Isenheim Altarpiece is both sculpture and painting, the sculpture by Nikolaus Haguenaue and the painting by Mattias Grunewald, done in 1512-1516, for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Issenheim, near Colmar. The Monastery's central (earthly) mission was care for victims of plague and especially skin diseases, chiefly ergotism, aka "St. Anthony's Fire," which comes from mold in rye bread. In addition to the Black Death, St. Anthony's Fire was a major disease and cause of death in the Middle Ages. The Isenheim Altarpiece is noted for its accurate depiction of this and other diseases. As with Medieval altarpieces generally, the Isenheim Altarpiece is many paintings, and sculpture, front-and-back folding wings and such, layered, the whole affair not made visible except on the most special religious occasions. At the Unterlinden it is displayed in the old convent's chapel, taking up most of the area, its various layers separated from one another, and with ample interpretive signage and models one can work to see how these things were to be viewed and understood. 

Helpful map of the complex

And model

Over-looking the chapel and the display of the Isenheim
Altarpiece

The main sculptural bit, St. Anthony flanked by a couple
of the church doctors, Jerome and Augustine

Assorted scenes from the several panels...all oil on wood...the use of
canvas was just beginning, although the use of oil had begun with
van Eyck a few generations before Isenheim

The usual scenes...Resurrection, Annunciation...

Heavenly music, Madonna and Bambino

And everyone's favorite, the temptations/torment
of St. Anthony; note furry buck-toothed creature in
the center ("Bucee"); Bosch was active at pretty
much this time, up north in the Netherlands (died
1516); reminiscent of his more fantastical work but 
not as rich, complex, imaginative, detailed...IMHO

One of the several models of the altarpiece whereby one can
manipulate the assorted panels and wings...

Bucee is the museum's official mascot

One of many pages of interpretive/historical information;
the altarpiece received a thorough cleaning and renovation
in recent years, and these processes also are documented
in the the interpretive signage; and in English too

Main sculpture in perspective

In the gift store...a nice puzzle for your child...