Saturday, April 07, 2007

Photo Friday- Blessing

I took some photos in La Collégiale de la Conversion de Saint-Paul [Collegiate Church of the Conversion of Saint Paul] in St Paul de Vence. There is no ban on photography there, and noone was praying so I felt ok about taking some photos without flash.

The oldest part of the chapel is the bell tower which was built in the 13th century. The side aisle chapels were added in the 15th and 16th centuries and the church was extensively refurbished in the 17th century. The photos below are of one of the side aisle chapels.

This was the only side aisle with the remains of extensive Trompe l'Oeil painting of marble paneling and columns and huge floral designs.

If the whole church was originally painted like this it must have been quite disorienting, though impressive.

I didn't intend to try and recreate the chapel in photographs until I saw the Photo Friday topic.
It would have been better to have taken the photos with the intention of patching them together, so the composite image is somewhat wonky. At the time i was mainly focusing on the painted walls and statue.

The composite gives an idea of how opulently decorated it is, and I suppose thats the main thing.

This is the 13th century bell tower.

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