Stendhal diary
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Julie Mélin & Renaud Vigourt
Located in the student housing “Stendhal”, at the Campus de la Bouloie in Besançon, this 5m mural mixing illustrations and lettering was imagined as a tribute to the writer Stendhal.
Rather than creating a classic portrait, the two artists chose to focus on Stendhal’s literary work. They began by learning about the relationship between Stendhal and Besançon, which is essentially found in his novel “Le Rouge et le Noir”. Both of them had fun with the names of the protagonists and references taken from his novels, proposing “winks” to be found in the mural’s details.
What could be more substantive than a street of Besançon, to evoke the atmosphere of the city? Julie and Renaud started with the idea of walking in a lively street, with some typical architectural elements (stones, roofs, chimneys, etc.) punctuated with messages in the shape of signs, boards, newspapers… A nod to Stendhal’s entire work. Each of them has taken time to reflect and propose to each other small and large detour, translated
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Biography
HARRIET LOGAN
Harriet Logan was born in England in 1967.
Whilst studying Illustration at Rhode Island University, USA Harriet completed an intimate and moving photo-thesis documenting the life of “John” a young man dying of AIDS. As a photojournalist she has worked on world-wide assignments for international newspapers and magazines including stories in Somalia, Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Chechenya, Kosovo, Mongolia, Iran, Kashmir, Angola, India and America. There are few countries she has not worked.
In 1992 Harriet received the Ian Parry Award from The Sunday Times and Nikon, which funded a six-month trip following the railway line from Benguela, Angola to Beira in Mozambique. This work was published in a book by Picador “Blood on the Tracks”. Harriet was a participant in the 1994 World Press Photo Masterclass in Amsterdam. In March 1996 she was one of four British photographers invited to exhibit in Zurich for the Night of Photography show.
Over several years, Harriet worked on a long-term project on prostitution for which she received
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Julien Sorel
Fictional character
Julien Sorel is the protagonist of The Red and the Black by Stendhal, published in 1830. Originally, the novel was meant to be eponymous.
Biography
An intelligent, handsome, and ambitious young man, he was born in Verrières, a small imaginary town in Doubs, though not based on any real geographical location. The son of a carpenter, he was despised by his father and his brothers for his weakness ("his puny physique, ill adapted as it was to manual labour") and his bookish nature. He was a passionate admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. The local bishop, Bishop Chélan, taught him Latin, allowing him to become a preceptor for the children of the mayor of Verrières, M de Rênal.
He plans his social ascension through two different means. He was a servant, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau from the Confessions, and an aspiring clerk. He dreams of integrating high society by the Red of the military uniform or the Black of the clergy.
Though the red refers to another aspiration: that of love and seduction, also similar to the young Jean-Jacque
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