Talk:Ferdinand Cheval

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 September 2019 and 28 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Smithereens.2. Peer reviewers: Hfarris1998.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

location?[edit]

Surely it would be helpfull if the article said where in france the palais was somewhere in the text? Abigsmurf 13:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Castle or Palace?[edit]

palace would be the more obvious translation for palais; a castle implies fortification. —Tamfang 18:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are right and changed the translation accordingly. Gestumblindi 00:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Défense de rien toucher[edit]

As many people have said below, this literally means "It is forbidden to touch nothing". "Do not touch nothing" is an incorrect translation - it gives the wrong connotation that it was meant to be written as "do not touch anything" but the person was weak in grammar in the same way that English speakers can be. This doesnt hold for french. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chengiz (talk • contribs) 01:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the translation of Défense de rien toucher. I think that mine is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.228.205.235 (talk) 22:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think it really is a cute, backwards way of saying "please touch". This French site and this one seem to agree with me. Cheval really wanted visitors to literally get a feel for the place. The latter site seems to also say that because of the fragility of the place, the caretakers wound up adding a 'please do NOT touch' over time, contradicting Cheval's original wish? Heh. -- kowey 05:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Being a French grammarian (from France), I may offer some input. The guy was uneducated scholarly speaking, and he committed a common grammar error in French by forgetting half of the negative construction. He clearly meant Défense de NE rien toucher which translates into Forbidden not to touch anything, i.e. "Obligation to touch something. But he wrote Défense de rien toucher". A simple grammar omission, which is orally acceptable and very very common (e.g. je (ne) veux pas). Surely, he could not have meant anything else. No other grammatical correction of his warning sign yields any logical and sensible meaning.

Défense de ne rien toucher = "Forbidden not to touch anything = Obligation of touching things —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.216.5 (talk) 08:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC) [reply]

As you say, "Défense de ne rien toucher" would be a double negative, "Don't not touch", i.e. "Do touch". What Cheval actually wrote, however, "Défense de rien toucher", is a classic, correct negative sentence. "Défense" "forbidden" functions in the same way as the negative particle "ne" in making the sentence negative, while "rien" is the affirmative "anything". The most literal translation is "Forbidden to touch anything", or more idiomatically, "Don't touch". In the same way, "ne . . . jamais" is really "not ever" even though we usually say "never", "ne . . . plus" is "not any longer", and so on. Let's give the man credit for writing what he meant.
The fact that one of the websites quoted above interprets the sign as an invitation to touch doesn't make it so - real French sites make mistakes too. The other one has nothing at all to say about this sign as far as I can see.
And finally, what would someone really say if they were inviting people to touch? Invitation à toucher? Touchez à volonté? Touchez s.v.p.? Prière de toucher à tout? In any case nothing remotely resembling "Défense de rien toucher". Awien (talk) 20:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oops! Scanned it too fast - does imply the same thing without spelling it out. Making the same mistake of interpreting "rien" as negative, which it isn't. Awien (talk) 21:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I changed it to "Forbidden to touch nothing", which is almost a litteral translation and the best I could design to keep the original ambiguity, although the missing negation is not a fault in english. In any case, "Do not touch anything" was not correct. Oh, and I am native french speaker of course. :) --Musaran (talk) 11:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
L'erreur que tu fais est d'interpréter le passé en termes du présent. En fait, la quasi-disparition de "ne" dans les expressions négatives, surtout dans la langue parlée, est un phénomène très récent, et un vrai bouleversement dans l'usage. Cheval est né il y a plus de 150 ans, une centaine d'années avant la révolution en question; tu n'as qu'à regarder (t'as qu'à regarder?!?) ses écrits disponibles en facsimilé en ligne - il n'omet jamais (il omet jamais?!?) le "ne" de la négation. A l'époque, "rien" seul signifiait "quelque chose" "quoi que ce soit", etc., c.-à-d., c'était un nominal indéfini. D'autres exemples sont: rester sans rien dire, renoncer à rien faire etc. Il n'y a aucune ambiguïté, il s'agit ici de la simple interdiction "je vous défends de toucher à quoi que ce soit". Awien (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Je vais en ce sens. "rien" signifie aussi "quelque chose". Ici, la phrase se comprend ainsi : "Défense de toucher à quelque chose." (Don't touch anything). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.90.223 (talk) 18:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Je suis français et rien signifie quelque chose dans des phrases comme "Ce petit rien.". Mais dans "Défense de rien toucher" rien signifie rien. Défense de toucher = Dont touch, Prière de (ne) rien toucher = Would you kindly touch nothing, Défense de rien toucher = Dont touch nothing = touch anything —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.5.153.177 (talk) 14:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


It's not clear from the article whether this is a structure that you can enter, and there is no indication as to how many rooms there might be and of what type. Does anyone here know? 128.172.67.238 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I've just come from there. You can enter, it has one tunnel through it that you can walk through with chambers either side of it, each of which have an entrance from the outside. The rooms are just spaces for people to stand and appreciate the decoration of the walls; they don't serve any function otherwise. You can also go upstairs, where I guess it could be described as a terrace. It's really cool, I would recommend it to anybody. I wouldn't call it a building though, certainly not a palace (that's just his name for it) it really is just a structure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.248.85 (talk) 00:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dead links[edit]

Almost all or all the external links are dead. Here's a possible replacement for anyone to add who has mastered the new system for adding links:

http://www.facteurcheval.com/histoire/palais-ideal-facteur-cheval.html

Awien (talk) 17:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Hughes[edit]

Robert Hughes in his book The Shock of the New (1980), discusses Cheval at length under the heading Surrealism; but throughout identifies Cheval in English as le facteur Cheval, much as the painter Rousseau is identified as le douanier. Nuttyskin (talk) 01:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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External links modified[edit]

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Building Methods - Open Questions[edit]

I'm hoping someone will stumble upon this section that can answer the following questions.

1. Where did this "peasant" get so much mortar (lime and cement, from what I understand)?

2. There are "thick sandstone columns" in the Temple of Nature (originally the name for the entire structure, reportedly) according to the article. Are they also composite / mortared stones/pebbles?

3. Did this "palace" include any quarrying or raising of large stones, or was all the building material small and manageable and a fantastic amount of mortar was used instead?

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