Etude de l'art des tsiganes par les élèves du projet comenius du lycée Henri Wallon

1. Gypsy Art
–
Art and Gypsies
Comenius Projet
Lycée Henri Wallon - Aubervilliers
Mars 2015

2. The gyspy art
The gypsy art is an art that consists
mainly in highliging nature and glory.
However there is very little
retrospective of the art because it's
more a craft than an art in itself.
Gypsy culture is rich in music, poetry,
performance, freedom, painting, but
these art form are too often
misunderstood and rejected because
of the preconceptions that people
have about this people.

3. Painting of a gypsy scene of life
In this picture we can see Gypsy people who are celebrating
something . We can notice that everyone seems happy and the
atmosphere is festive. The use of warm colors accentuates the
generosity , the friendliness and the welcoming spirit of the people .
There are many objects that are representative of this culture as the
guitar, music, dance and cheerfulness that people emit .

4. Representation of a gypsy woman
In these two pictures we can see that the dress style of a gypsy woman
is rather a very colorful style , which is representative of their festive
moods.

5. Chagall's painting
Les gens du voyage, 1968
Chagall isn't a gypsy but a Belarusian and Soviet naturalized and he
is French however he has always been fascinated by these people
and their culture. That's why he decided to make them the key
theme of all his works .

6. Two CD covers containing a set of gypsy songs
" The ball of the Gypsy " is a music compilation of gypsy inspiration which
appeared in 2 volumes , the first one in 2006 and the second in 2007.
Gypsy music is festive and noisy and contains a lot of stringed
instruments .

7. Gypsy Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5StMOXoBgvo
The gypsy dances are very festive and very fast. Most of the time people
are dancing in couples or facing each other.

9. Gypsy dances

10. Upon their arrival in Europe, Gipsies have been notorious for their dances which have similarities with flamenco dances and
Indian dances. We can find in these dances the same foot raps. It is remarkable that children learn to dance at the same time
they learn to talk. Pictures below show the historical continuity of the Gypsy dance and its affiliation the Indian dance

11. But gypsy dance has also some particularities that makes it unique. Full of rhythm, emotions, it's a dance of parties and
challenges which has its codes and its own technique.

12. But, unfortunately, today, Gypsy's dance tend to disappear.
It's a painting of a gypsy in
her traditional dress painted
thick which gives a relief
effect which wants to imitate
the movement of the dress.
Behind her, a guitar painted of
acrylic which reminds of the
gypsy music. Dance and
music play an important role
in the gypsies's communities.

13. Here again, we can find we find those warm colours.
It’s an oil painting made with a knife. We can see
a gypsy camp and gipsies are gathered around a
campfire, playing music to accompany a dancer.
Note that the dancer's dress has the exact same
colors as the colors of the fight which gives the
image of a warm, welcoming community.

15. Gypsy Divinatory Arts

16. Cristallomancie
The cristallomancie comes from gipsy population because
these are the first users of cristal balls. Before gipsies, witches
used pieces of crystal to read the future. With this art, it’s
possible to know the near future as well as the distant future.
The origin of the word « cristallomancie » comes from the
greek <<crystallus » (ice) and « manteia » (divination).
Crystal ball is also named << Hindu mirror » and it remains
the traditional emblem of the clairvoyance. Cristallomancie
was outlawed by Church on the 1st of march 1994 because
they thought it was a joke.

17. The Tarot
The tarot reading is the application of the fortune-
telling cards of the Tarot de Marseille . It is a
divination that uses all or part of the 78 cards of the
« Tarot de Marseille »

18. Astrology
Astrology is a set of traditions and beliefs that argue
that the position of the planets in the solar system
provides information to analyze or predict human
events, collective or individual . Its popular versions
are the horoscopes magazines or affinities of the
zodiac signs . In most countries, reading horoscope
magazines is extremely popular versions.

19. Palmistry
1: Life line
2: Head line
3: Heart line
4: Venus ring
5 : Line Sun
6: Mercury line
7: Chance line
Palmistry is a divining practice of interpreting
the lines and other signs of the palm of the
hand.
Each element studied (the shape of the hands,
the mountains and ridges , nails and finger
positions ) is attached to an aspect of
personality .

20. Movies

21. EMIR KUSTURICA
Emir Kusturica, born 24 November 1954 in Sarajevo in the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, is a filmmaker, actor and Serbian
musician, twice winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Gypsies are the focus of two films of Kusturica: Time of the
Gypsies and Black Cat, White Cat, although Gypsy music players appear
in almost all his other films. Emir Kusturica has no gypsy family roots but
has frequented gypsies since his childhood, and for him, these people
symbolize the concept of freedom.
Kusturica also created a punk opera Time of the Gypsies,
the first representation was given on 26 June 2007 at the Opéra Bastille
in Paris. The opera is based on his 1989 film Time of the Gypsies, the
book was written by Nenad Jankovic and music composed by the No
Smoking Orchestra. The work, very different from the usual
programming of the Bastille Opera (songs amplified microphone, live
tracks, incredible scenery, etc.) was a great critical and public success.

22. Time of the Gypsies is a Yugoslav film directed by Emir Kusturica,
released in 1989.
This film was one of the very first films shot almost entirely in Romani,
the language of the gypsies.
It tells the dramatic life of Perhan, the natural son of a
soldier and a gypsy, who dreams of a rich and happy future. Raised by
his grandmother, who loves him, he's almost torn from her and went to
Italy to work for a child trafficker. He will return to the country but will
fail to achieve his dream.
YUGOSLAVIA - 1989 - 2:22
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenplay: Emir Kusturica & Gordan Mihic
Image: Vilko Filac
Music: Goran Bregovic
Actor: Davor Dujmovic (Perhan) Bora Todorovic (Ahmed)
Ljubica Adžović (Grandmother) Husnija Hasimovic (Merdzan)
Sinolicka Trpkova (Azra) Emir Kusturica (bar patron in Milan)
The scene of the St. George's feast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pdaSZHBIAU
People influenced by the music of this scene:
Sofi Marinova & Neli Petkova – Gergiovden
Kayah & Bregovič - Nie Ma, Nie Ma Ciebie

23. Tony Gatlif
Tony Gatlif, born September 10th 1948 at Alger, of his real name
Michel Dahmani, is a French film director, also actor, scenarist,
composer and producer of movies. He was born of a Kabyle father
and a Gitano mother. He spent his childhood in Alger, and then
came to France in 1960 during the War of Algeria. He performed in
different plays then made his first movie in 1975, La Tête en ruine.
From 1981, he developed his thematic that will deepen from film to
film: the Gypsies throughout the world. He was seduced by a
"community in motion" and a "world of sound and music "of “great
wealth and great diversity”. However, obviously foreign to the idea
of an exclusive attachment to a community, Gatlif defined himself
as a "Mediterranean".
Tony Gatlif is the scenarist of the film that he has done.
1973 : Max l'indien (court métrage)
1975 : La Tête en ruine
1978 : La Terre au ventre
1981 : Canta gitano (court-métrage)
1983 : Les Princes
1985 :Rue du départ
1989 : Pleure pas my love
1990 : Gaspard et Robinson
1993 Latcho Drom
1995 : Mondo
1997 : Gadjo Dilo
1998 : Je suis né d'une cigogne
2000 : Vengo
2001 : Swing
2004 : Paris by Night, court-métrage du film Visions of
Europe
2005 : Exils
2006 : Transylvania
2010 : Liberté
2012 : Indignados
2014 : Geronimo

24. Liberté (Korkoro) The message
The "official representative of the gypsy cinema" in France gives with
Liberté a very nice surprise. It deals with the deportation and
extermination of gypsies during World War II, an episode almost absent
from history books and from most of the movie screens. Then, with its
form, it summoned all the cultural folklore but it avoids cliché
representation, or even plays with it.
Barbed wire fence in winter, an alignment of gray and dirty shacks, mud.
Behind the barbed wire, an armada of women, men, children with closed
faces with an unspeakable sadness. Imaging - alas! - familiar to
Holocaust. Except here, it is the Gypsies who stand behind the barbed
wire.
Between 250 000 and 500 000 of them perished under the Nazi regime: a
revealing imprecision of the lack of historical research on this tragic
period. His film is a great success because it breathes freedom in wholes
points. After a lot of research and many meetings, the director has woven
his script by aggregating several stories, several fates. The path taken
abandons the meticulous historical reconstruction for the benefit of the
uptake of gypsy soul struggling with human tyranny.

25. The scenario
We are in France in 1943. A gypsy family -with beautiful costumes and vintage trailers - prepares to return to a small
village where they used to do the harvest. Except now, Vichy is installed. Gypsies are now prohibited of vagrancy. It is
thanks to the mayor, Theodore, played by Marc Lavoine, and resistant teacher Mademoiselle Lundi (Marie-Josée
Croze), inspired by the fate of a "Just", that the family escapes, for a time, before being arrested and deported.
Scenes
From the evocation of a watch with Hebrew numbers found along the rails of a train to the parallel scenes of torture of
Theodore and Miss Monday, everything is made with intelligence and delicate suggestion, not heavy but with great
accuracy. He exhibited here by his camera the freedom of Gypsy people and the monstrosity of intolerance.
Filming the Gypsies- Tony Gatlif has done this for almost thirty years with more or less happiness- is fatally to bring
along a bit of the folklore cliché. The director plays with its codes: Gypsies are often portrayed as born-musicians who
spend their lives clapping hands with guitars around a campfire - but not only… If this culture is filmed outside any
cliché, it's because the scenes where it is reflected are carried by a wonderful madman, Taloche, played by James
Thiérrée. His character of a sensitive naive, poet a little bit seer, translates alone all the feelings summoned by such a
story: the fear, the rage, the madness who looming, the misunderstanding, the resistance at the stagnation ... This
Taloche is an amazing gypsy-Charlot, who rushes into the ground to smell the substance, who is escalating trees and
falling into the creek, and who runs breathlessly through the forest and the nears, his cry following him as an expected
delivery. To sum up, someone who is free.

26. In fact, all the gypsy culture filmed in Liberté is based on a very present music, which brings a joyful lightness unexpected
with such a subject. About the music precisely, one of the most beautiful scenes of the film is "Maréchal nous voila" taken
up by the gypsy sauce.
Located in the middle of the film, this is like the climax of the film and it represents the specific musical talent of the Gypsy
people. This recovery enables this typically French music of the Gypsy culture, creating a cultural mix, especially as the
scene is presented as a fusion between Gypsies and the high society. This mix gives us a very beautiful music to hear, with
a certain emotion. The proof is that high society is satisfied with the service provided by the Gypsies, who played for them
all evenings. It is representative of the message of the film, extolled by Tony Gatlif.