France from the Air

" What purity of line, what extraordinarily clean-cut vistas ! Everything seems so marvellously and breathtakingly well-ordered ! " exclaimed the great French photographer Nadar when he saw the first aerial photographs. Seen from the air, the textures, reliefs and features of the landscape take on an unexpected abstract beauty : a chequerboard of ochre, umber and magenta formed by the salt basins of the Rhône delta, the iridescent and eerily beautiful mosaic of sea and quicksands around the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. Daniel Philippe's photographs of France reveal a land of infinite variety and contrasts, from the terracotta-tiled villages of Provence to the soberly opulent granite streets of Deauville and St Malo, from the busy fishing ports of the west coast to the mysterious ferests of the Vosges in the east. We look down on the solitary expanses of the Camargue and the snow-covered peaks of the Alps, the weather-beaten shores of Brittany and the golden bays of the Côte d'Azur. People have left their mark too. Here are the prodigious feats of Roman engineers - the monumental amphitheatre of Arles, for example - and the magnificent achievements of medieval architects, such as Chartres cathedral. We circle over exquisite Renaissance châteaus and the flamboyant palaces of Fontainebleau and Versailles.