L'Oiseau Blanc

[Vahe Demirjian]

Regarding the paint scheme of L'Oiseau blanc, it's interesting that the heart below the cockpit has a skull and crossbones on it, which is oxymoronic b/c the heart means love and the skull and crossbones means death. Why did the manufacturers paint emblazon the sides of the fuselage of L'Oiseau Blanc with a heart with a skull and crossbones on the heart if the skull and crossbones and the heart don't go together?

 

[robunos]

Working from imperfect memory, but wasn't the black heart with skull and crossbones Charles Nungesser's personal emblem?

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

Correct. I did a google image search and nungesser did use the emblem with a skull and crossbones on the heart. I wonder why nungesser decided to craft an emblem where the skull and crossbones are superimposed on the heart because he should have known that the skull and crossbones and the heart symbolize death and love respectively.

 

[Stargazer]

Correct. I did a google image search and nungesser did use the emblem with a skull and crossbones on the heart. I wonder why nungesser decided to craft an emblem where the skull and crossbones are superimposed on the heart because he should have known that the skull and crossbones and the heart symbolize death and love respectively.

And... ? What makes you think he ignored it? Why be so Cartesian about things? Have you never heard about the beauty of paradox? Two elements that are in apparent opposition yet coexist. Our Western minds have been so polluted by the bipolar approach of rationalism, Cartesianism and Manichaeism that things must either be white or black, good or bad, wrong or right. Yet experience shows that things can't be so neatly arranged into two categories, and also that life is all about many shades of gray in-between black or white. Ancient Oriental cultures cherished the notion of paradox and had no problems with two conflicting notions coexisting or being both 100% true. Only through art and faith can man come to grips once again with that beauty of paradox. And wouldn't you say that these top-class vintage pilots were kind of artists in their own field? Dreamers? Visionaries? Think of Saint-Exupery for instance. Who knows, Nungesser may have been fond of the paradox in that symbol!

Besides, things that you love can sometimes kill you. It is not incompatible. A wartime aviator knew that he was risking his life day-in, day-out, yet would never trade his job for anything... because flying was the love of his life. And so to me the mix of love and death, heart and death's head, makes perfect sense to me in this context!