PvB/PNRFO <p>Découvrez le territoire des Lacs et du Parc naturel régional de la Forêt d'Orient, pour vos vacances ou un weekend, avec des hébergements à taille humaine.<br /> Pour vous : 3 lacs (Orient, Temple, Amance), près du Lac du Der, ports de plaisance, loisirs nautiques, voile, kite-surf, motonautisme, ski nautique, jet-ski, pêche, baignade.<br /> Un cadre naturel exceptionnel : forets profondes, étangs, randonnée à pied, à cheval, en vélo.<br /> Plus de 265 especes d'oiseaux, migration des grues, cygogne noire, observatoires.<br /> Une terre d'histoire, voies romaines, Templiers, sculpture Renaissance, musée Napoléon, ecomusée.<br />...</p> Pascal Bourguignon / PNRFO <p>Le Balcon du Parc est une route touristique permettant de découvrir le Parc naturel régional de la Forêt d'Orient.</p> Gary Rodgers <p>Coucher de soleil sur le Lac d'Orient.<br /> En mémoire d'Alan Oswald Rodgers, Néo-Zélandais, pilote de Lancaster (1923-1944).</p> Anne villaumé / PNRFO <p>Pour la construction du nouvel observatoire du Lac du Temple, une technique respectueuse de l'environnement a été utilisé, le débardage.</p> Peter van Bussel / PNRFO <p>200 étangs au moyen-âge, aujourd'hui près de 70. Tous privés, certains sont accessibles en restant sur les chemins de randonnée.</p> PNRFO <p>Ici une Caloptéryx Vierge. Après l'accouplement, la femelle pond ses oeufs dans l'eau. Les larves muent plusieurs fois avant de sortir au grand air pour devenir des libellules... </p> Ludovic Thiérard <p> Pont donnant accès à l'entrée par la grille d'honneur du Château de Brienne</p> Ange Franquin <p>Port de plaisance de Mesnil Saint-Père. Lac d'Orient.</p> PvB/PNRFO <p>Au point de vue du Croît, une table d'orientation avec des vues imprenables sur la Champagne humide, avec ses lacs, forêts et champs.</p> Ange Franquin <p>Le lac d'Orient: loin du bruit des moteurs...vive la voile sur toutes ses formes.</p> Peter van Bussel / PNRFO <p>Les lacs du PNR de la Forêt d'Orient atteignent des niveaux différents dans l'année, il n'est donc pas rare de croiser des arbres immergés sur les berges.</p> Pascal Bourguignon / PNRFO <p>Grands Lacs, forêts majestueuses, étangs, rivières, faune sauvage, prés et champs, grandes cultures, vignoble, plateaux et rivières, architecture à pans de bois, …</p>

"The Champagne Miracle"

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The "Champagne Miracle "

An exquisite moment

Those men of the years 1480-1560,have left such sensitive traces that our eyes and maybe our hearts can still decipher them without too much difficulty. If for a long time the inhabitants of Champagne considered themselves French, the Champagne of the C16th had its special characteristics, one finds it: in the monuments, the paintings, the sculptures, the stained glass windows, the books from local printers, are still numerous and in themselves a real echo of the faith, the fears and the hopes of the inhabitants still comes back to us.

Art historians have tried to understand the " Champagne miracle " of the Renaissance : that exquisite moment when the still vigorous Middle Ages found enough strength to renew old forms particularly by means of engravings , and at the same time to accept the Italian influence by the use of simple decorative motifs. 

A breath from Italy

As in other regions of Europe, the wind from Italy penetrated softly and as if by accident, by the means of decoration. For stained glass windows and monumental sculptures, it's garlands of putti and flowers that race all around a window or ornament the stone work around doorways; for statuary it is by an expression a little more accentuated; for architecture the classic forms (rounded arcades, columns with ancient capitals...) appear timidly in the middle of the century beside the Gothic flamboyant forms; such as the western facade of the church of Pont - Saint - Marie.
Towards 1560 classicism had won out on for example on the western portal of Saint - André - Les - Vergers or at Saint - Pantaléon in Troyes.

The Champagne Miracle was a time of balance that lasted longer than elsewhere between the sustained vigour of Gothic forms, the assimilation of the Flemish and German realism and the acceptance of the temptation of expressionism with an Italian influence.
At the end of this slide, artists continued with virtuosity to sculpt cherubs and baskets of flowers whilst abandoning the Gothic " framework " marked by ascending lines for flat classical structures moved by horizontal lines sustained by columns more or less imitations of antique styles. 

A land of masterpieces 

The marriage of these elements gave some masterpieces: the crypt of Chaource, the rood screen of the Madeleine in Troyes, the sculpted panels of the wooden rood screen in Villemaur that are copies of Schöengauer, the altar screen in Géraudot, the stained glass window of the apocalypse in Chavanges copied from Dürer, the statue of Saint Marguerite in Bouilly... If these marvels of balance touch us, it is largely due to the synthesis of which they are the fruit.
No matter whether it was the C12th, under the enlightened authority of the counts or later of the merchant princes, the towns of Champagne, Troyes especially, had always been places of exchange and mixing, open to all of Europe in the the north up to the Baltic, and in the south just to the gates of the Orient. Their vocation and habits gave the inhabitants of Champagne not only a wide vision of the world but also a good understanding of the specialness of the kingdom and their province.