The Orient of Provence people |
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Collection title
France Régions 3 Marseille
First broadcast date
11/10/1982
Abstract
"The Orient of Provence people" is the name of a thematic exhibition, emblematic of the links the Mediterranean city has with the East since its inception.
Seventeen thematic exhibitions are thus divided between archives, museums, Chamber of commerce and libraries of the city.
The objects and furniture on display come from the collections of merchants working with the countries of the East.
Many works, presented for the first time, come from museums reserves or private funds: works of the Algerian Baya, paintings by Delacroix, Sisley and Bonnard, lent by the Museum of Algiers.
Production companies
-
France 3 Méditerranée - Own production
Audiovisual form
Magazine
Primary theme
Art, Culture and Knowledge
Secondary themes
- Historical heritages
- Tourism and cultural sites / Museum
Credits / Cast
- Roubaud Maguy - Journalist
- Bourlard Marie Hélène - Participant
- Latour Marielle - Participant
- Plouton René - Journalist
Map locations
- France - South East - Marseille
Context
L’Orient des Provençaux
Céline Regnard
If there is one city in France where the Orient has made its mark over the centuries, it is Marseille. Flourishing trading port in the 17th and 18th centuries its influence at that point was mainly centred round the Mediterranean, going from the Iberian and Italian peninsulas to the Levant -- meaning Asia Minor and the Near East -- passing by "Barbary", the North African Berber coast. Trade with the Levantine ports, those ports and towns of the Ottoman Empire in which French merchants had certain privileges allowing them to develop fruitful commercial activity, brought into Marseille a great quantity of exotic merchandise (textiles, spices) but also primary materials necessary for the development of local industry (oils for soap, sugar). In the 19th century the rise of both industry and trade continued this process. Its rise, linked to the invention of steam ships, was boosted by the development of trade with France's new colonial empire, constantly expanding after 1830, and by the opening of the Suez Canal which, in 1869 conbsiderably speeded up the transport time. For about a hundred years Marseille became the major colonial port of France, made famous in the colonial exhibitions of 1906 and 1922. As Albert Londres wrote in 1926, the world's most exotic goods could all be found there, every nationality, every language in this "Gateway to the South". Like the merchandise, men also travelled, inevitably passing through Marseille. Immigrants, migrants in transit, settlers leaving or returning, Marseille became a crossroads for the world in the 19th century.
The distant destinations were much more than just trading partners. Orientalism was intimately tied in with these commercial operations, which were also about people travelling. In the 18th century the literary and artistic descriptions, such as the canvases of Joseph Vernet, already conveyed an exoticism which fascinated collectors. By the 19th century the Orientallist fashion affected the town. After Delacroix's journey to Algeria in 1830, many painters set off in search of oriental colour. Among them was Joseph Vernet's grandson, Horace. The paintings of Marseille are adorned with bright colours and eastern motifs. As examples, the two paintings on the main staircase of the Musée des Beaux Arts in the Longchamp Palace, commissioned in 1867 from Puvis de Chavannes: Marseille, Colonie grecque and Marseille, Gateway to the East. From Flora Tristan to Albert Londres, literary descriptions stress the perfume of the East which pervades Marseille. The colonial exhibitions in the early 20th century coincided with the height of modern orientalism, marked by a strong attraction for the architecture and exotic decoration.
The period of decolonisation, particularly the Algerian War, put a definitive end to this eastern reverie. Marseille became the epicentre for post-colonial tension. It was an explosive mixture: a North African population of mainly Algerian workers, harkis, pieds noirs and the extreme Right all living together in one town where the OAS was still influential. Sure enough in 1973 Marseille became the stage for an outbreak of racism and the symbol of the problem of immigration in France. It was in this context of conflict that a series of exhibitions was organised in 1982 entitled "L'Orient des Provencaux" aiming to show the strong historical links between Marseille and the countries of the southern Mediterranean. The town council under Gaston Deferre, the mayor, encouraged the initiative, wanting to make capital out of showing that a cosmopolitan Marseille was a positive value, Marseille a hyphen between East and West. However the context was difficult: in the municipal elections of 1983 the National Front had its first big successes in Marseille, as elsewhere in France. The same year the protest march from southern France to Paris known as the Marche des beurs set out from Marseille in almost complete indifference. The work of political re-appropriation of Marseille's cosmopolitanism as a symbol of openness and pacificism, taken up by the new mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, had a long way to go.
Bibliography :
Louis Bergasse et Gaston Rambert, Histoire du commerce de Marseille (1599-1789), t. IV, Paris, Plon, 1954
Charles Carrière, Richesse du passé marseillais. Le port mondial au XVIIIe siècle, Marseille, CCIM, 1979
Irini Apostolou, L'Orientalisme des voyageurs français au XVIIIe siècle. Une iconographie de l'Orient méditerranéen, Paris, PUPS, coll. « Imago mundi », 2009
Emile Temime, Migrance. Histoire des migrations à Marseille, Jeanne Laffitte, 2007
Yvan Gastaut, « Marseille cosmopolite après les décolonisations : un enjeu identitaire », Cahiers de la Méditerranée, n° 67, 2003
