Gadagne: a visit to a Lyon museum with no collections on display (2)

After the first level (see article), here is the second part of the Musée Gadagne tour, one floor higher. This one is entitled: "Dipping its feet in the water". Remember that this is a museum, not an amusement park. This is, of course, an allusion to the two watercourses, a river and a stream, that bathe the capital of Gaul, and which this section is supposed to be about.

: 1. The pirogue-vivier
Lyon, Gadagne Museum
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

At least, for the first time, we can see some - rare - works... A sixteenth-century pirogue-vivier (ill. 1), discovered a few years ago and which has every right to be displayed in this museum, occupies the first room, in a minimalist museography and a bluish light that is hard to explain. This is no doubt because the waters of the Rhône are "blue-grey", as one panel tells us. Yet another panel tells us that the Saône is "green-brown"...

: 2. Room in the Musée Gadagne with a painting by Charles-François Rivard in the centre
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

: 3. Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy (1757-1841)
View of Pierre Scize, c. 1793
Oil on canvas - 99.6 x 148.2 cm
Lyon, Musée Gadagne
Photo: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon; See the image in its page

In the next room we find a few paintings, including the two large canvases by Charles-François Rivard showing respectively the banks of the Saône and the Rhône in 1804 (ill. 2), and a painting by Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy (ill. 3), and another view of Lyon by Joseph Vézien Desombrages, a very little-known artist but a pretty picture. It’s at least that. This minimalist presentation is organised in small sections, one per wall, which illustrate the different activities that can be carried out on the banks of a river: "Over the centuries, Lyon has lived close to its waterways. Fishing, transporting, swimming, washing, playing, relaxing... there are so many possible uses. The river and its tributaries fostered trade and prosperity"... The few objects brought together here belong more to a Museum of Folk Arts and Traditions (ill. 4) than to a History Museum. Why not, but it doesn’t tell us anything, or not much, other than that washerwomen are "an energetic profession".

: 4. View of a wall in a room
of the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

: 5. A room in the Musée Gadagne
on the left, a painting hung too low,
on the right, a painting hung too straight (unless it’s the picture rail...)
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

In the next room there are a few more paintings (ill. 5)... One is hung very low so that you can’t see it very well (they say it’s for children...). The other is hanging crookedly, unless it’s the picture rail supporting it that’s tilted. Why is it crooked? Perhaps because it depicts a ship caught in the ice, and therefore not quite straight itself? This room shows that the proximity of the Rhône and Saône rivers makes "life not so tranquil". The text on the panel should be quoted in full here: "Living so close to the water is not without its dangers. In summer and winter alike, these natural living forces wither, swell, resist and destroy. In these conditions, it’s not easy to cross them, navigate on them or expand a town. And yet. During the 19th century, thanks to technical progress, these rages were tamed and these forces channelled. Living so close to humans is not so peaceful..."

: 6. On the left, an oil on canvas, or rather a reproduction of an oil on canvas...
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

This prose poses a number of fascinating questions: how can a river (and even more so the Rhône and Saône) "wither"? Dry up, in the extreme... As for the sentence "Living so close to humans is not so peaceful", you wonder who they’re talking about? The river that humans threaten? The ninth-grader who probably wrote this text is definitely going to get a bad mark. Unless it was one of the "hundreds of experts and researchers" consulted?
In this large room, we will see three works of art in all. The two paintings mentioned above, and a third, by Hippolyte Lazerges, depicting Napoleon visiting the flood victims of 1856. Add to that a model boat, and you have just about the only museum-worthy objects on display. The rest? Stodgy room panels, booklets and leaflets, more or less enlarged reproductions of engravings and photographs and, worst of all, a life-size reproduction of an oil painting (ill. 6). While the museum’s collections lie in storage, reproductions of paintings are on display!

: 7. A diorama at the Musée Gadagne
(Louis Daguerre must be turning
in his grave)
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

: 8. A "beaver house"
at the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner; See the image in its page

We’ll move on even faster to the next room, which defies imagination. On the pretext of denouncing pollution, we see a kind of set that takes up almost the whole room (ill. 7). The press kit tells us that this is a "diorama featuring a hyper-realistic set to raise public awareness of the fragility of the ecosystem of the lônes (arms) of the Rhône under human pressure". You’ll appreciate the "hyper-realism" of this lesson.
Fortunately, to recover from all these emotions, visitors can curl up in a little niche (ill. 8) sheltered from the problems of the world: "" This way " Brother and little sister follow her to a hut made of branches. A beaver’s house". We’d like to smile, but we can’t, nor will we want to watch the film that closes the tour, which shows "aerial and underwater views of the Rhône and Saône", surrounded by a microscope and a piece of scale model (ill. 9).