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NICE CARNIVAL / CARNIVAL OF NICE
Nice France : the city of French Carnival
 Grotesque chronology.
Creation of the Events committee and the first parade of Carnival, on Saleya Courts, on 1873.
Debate around the float of Ratapignata/chauve-souris (bat), in 1875, the grotesque takes it on the allegorical.
Creation of the battles of flowers in 1876.
First trains of pleasure on the line Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée, in 1877.
First float of the Music, on 1877.
Grand Veglione (masked ball) in the Opera, on 1879.
First float of Her Majesty Carnival, Triboulet in 1882, with royal sound procession of arrival.
The Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, attends the Carnival (1888).
First poster advertisement of the Carnival, on 1889.
The Prince of Wales (future Edouard Vll) lights the stake of Carnival, in 1889.
Loggia for Carnival in 1890, (set up in the style of the Art nouveau between 1904 and 1908).
Appearance of the confettis of paper in the Carnival of Nice in 1892.
Creation of Madam Carnival, by Alexis Mossa in 1893, and Marriage with S.M. Carnival XXI
Belle Otero, participates in the battle of flowers on her float, on 1902.
Official song of Carnival in 1905.
Babaoù of larnach, bigger float of the Carnival, in 1905.
Carnival, Persée astride inverted on Pégase, Goodbye in the Beautiful Time, on 1914. (Pierre Spagnol Mossa and G. A's float.).
1921, Return of Carnival, after the war (Gustav-Adolf Mossa's float and Alexis Sidro), Gargantua on the Alsatian Stork.
First electric illuminations in 1921.
1922, " Veloù, Veloù ", Carnival on the old-Bridge.
Blackpool (GB's) carnival is organized by carnavaliers of Nice in 1923.
Carnival is a Cubist, a Dadaist, in 1931.
Carnival sings " the enjoyment " in 1939.
It is abolished for " cause of madness " (war) from 1940 till 1945.
on 1955, last battles of confettis of plaster.
on 1964, the carnavalier Alexandre Sidro develops the mechanization of floats.
1976, King-Kong, J. P and P. Povignu.'s float, magnificent machine float makes sensation on the parade.
on 1984, Carnival hundred, its hundredth year of administration celebrates, and develops cultural activities for the youth First International matches on the Carnival, the Holiday and the Communication.
Nice, crossroads of the carnivals of the world with the creation of the television broadcast, " Carnivals of Carnivals " (1987-90).
Carnival, King of love, on 1989. Jorge Amado, foreman of the jury in 1990.
The war of the Gulf pulls the cancellation of Carnival, king of Madmen in 1991.
King of the Kings in 1992.
King of Europe in 1993. Two plastic artists of the School of Nice, Louis Cane and Ben, realize each a float, Masquerade and Unique And multiple Europe for Cane, Ratapignata, for Ben.
Centenary of madam Carnival, on 1993. |
Glances on the Parade
The grotesque parade reminds of an immense comic strip where carnavaliers give free course to their imagination while finding the traditional subjects of the carnival: allegories inherited from the affectation and from the baroque, or staged private individual of the nature. And of its bestiary (with the Bear or the Bat. Animals - totems. The monstrous giants, savages, Ogres, King-Kong of modern times swallow and re-spit their victims of comedy in a devilish fantastic universe close to that of the tales of fairies and Alice in wonderland.
The small world of the carnival evolves during the years. Carnavaliers did a pastiche of the political and social events before 1914, then, graft both wars, Carnival, gargantuan hero, chooses more the local satire. It undergoes also the influence of the crazy years and shows itself fond of exoticism. It turns the back to the politics rejects the crisis: merry roisterer has the conquest of the love in 1934, he is a millionaire of the national lottery in 1937 and sings The enjoyment in 1939! After the war, Carnival becomes an ambassador of Nice, capital of Côte d'Azur (French Riviera). It reigns on an universe of sun and spectacular among some good grotesque dragons or babaou). |
The universe of the fantastic in the Carnival
The Carnival represents an universe populated with mediatory mythical and symbolic persons between the world of the Darkness and that of the Sky.
These persons, beings or psychopompe animals, have for mission to pull wandering ' souls ", from Darkness, to the Light.
In the carnivals of former time, a psychodrama deceived, where the "creatures" of the devil, the hell, preceded those of the heavenly world either evolved in their sides.
Being Herlechinus, Harlequin, Hellequin, devil in the popular mythology, become the Man Savage, pulled wandering " souls ", in the sound of a tumult, whose echoes ring still with holidays of rural and heathen origin, the Carnival develops in the medieval cities and parodies the procession of entrance of the Princes of the Renaissance.
Parades of floats appear to know a new shape at the end of the XIX ème century at instigation of ltaly and especially of Nice, which from 1873 presented the most important grotesque parade of the world in the presence of a public of prestigious winter holiday-makers.
Did this public " of aesthetes ", suspect in participating so in Carnaval which he assisted a parade for which, " carnavaliers " drew their source of inspiration from the deepest and old traditions of this Holiday?
Those that one found anchored well at the same moment in the traditional and European culture in the villages of the high country of Nice and that knew well the biggest artists print-manufactors " the Carnival Alexis Mossa, and his son Gustave Adolphe.
In this implementation of the grotesque corsi from 1873, we attend a representation of several subjects mythical or drawn from the popular prints and carnavaliers by interposed floats the one express a collective unconscious, and reproduce the popular mythology of the Carnival - notably that concerned the " world of the inversion " and of the fantastic imagination ", - and allows the coexistence of an apollinien and Dionysian universe. |
The Battle of Ratapignata
The first parades of floats are rather of allegorical style " Eulogy of the peace " in 1874 the next year, triumph of the heroine of Nice Catherine Ségurane who became famous during the seat of Nice in 1543. But in this same year of 1875 another grotesque conception appears on the parade with the famous float of Ratapignata (bats) forty bats display their black wings doubled by skins of rabbit or cat on a manor house in ruin being imperative by the size (six metres) and the realism of suits this float made big impression on the parade but it did not however obtain the first prize.
The Events committee preferred the academicism pompier of Catherine Ségurane's float.
This judgment was controversial. Two clans were strongly in confrontation in the city: on one side the separatists (partisans of a return of Nice towards the realm of Italy) in favour of Catherine Ségurane and on the other one the French party which had chosen Ratapignata. The Events committee resigned and the carnival adopted a more grotesque style to the detriment of the allegorical festival which was reserved for the battles of flowers. |
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