Welcome to the Via Lucis Blog for Romanesque Photography

Via Lucis Photography is about the art and architecture of Romanesque and Gothic churches in Europe. This blog highlights those photographs but also features the written word to characterize and give context to the images.

Photographers Dennis Aubrey and PJ McKey have photographed approximately 850 of these churches and captured over 100,000 images. We have created a library of more than 5,000 high resolution images for licensing on the VIA LUCIS website.

In addition, Via Lucis images are available for academic or research purposes through ARTstor.

If you are interested, here is a post that lists some of our personal favorite articles on Via Lucis.

Please note that all images and text on this Via Lucis blog are copyrighted by the photographers and authors. Thank you for respecting this notice.

Pablo Casals in the Pyrénées (Dennis Aubrey)

Prades has almost always been part of my consciousness. My parents had a well-worn record album of Pablo Casals performing at the Pablo Casals Festival of Music. In 1950, Casals created the festival and he played there with some of the finest classical instrumentalists of the time. I knew this because I read the record jacket hundreds of times.

So when we finally went to Prades in 2009, I was in great anticipation of the visit. The site did not disappoint, set as it is in the Pyrénées. We stayed in a a lovely chambres d’hôtes on the outskirts of the small town, the Castel Rose. Elegant and welcoming, it was a perfect base of operations for our four days in the area.

Castel Rose breakfast room

From our room window we could look out at the famous Mont Canigou, home to the ancient Benedictine monastery hidden on its slopes.

View of Mont Canigou from the Castel Rose (Photo by Dennis Aubrey)

The church itself is not particularly exciting, having been rebuilt in the 17th century on its Romanesque foundation. On the western front are some arcades rescued from Saint Michel de Cuxa, but the real glories of the church are its furnishings.

Nave, Église Saint Pierre, Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The famous retable was created by the Catalan sculptor Joseph Sunyer. The retable is the largest Baroque altarpiece in France and took almost two years to complete. The completed triptych was finished in 1699. A monumental 12′ tall Saint Peter dominates the central section, clothed in his pontifical vestments and wearing a tiara. The Virgin is enthroned above him, the intermediary between heaven and earth.

Retable, Église Saint Pierre, Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Sunyer also created the magnificent retable in the small Eglise Saint Martin d’Odeillo in Odeillo-Font Romeu, home to two magnificent vierges romanes.

Retable detail, Église Saint Pierre, Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales) Photo by PJ McKey

There is also a modern black madonna in one of the twelve side chapels of the nave. each with its own elaborate retable. Even though she is not a medieval creation, to me she harkens back to the ancient statues at Dorres and other churches in the region.

Black Madonna, Église Saint Pierre, Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

PJ also captured a photo of another fine modern addition, the crucifixion sculpture.

Crucifix, Église Saint Pierre, Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales) Photo by PJ McKey

And while Prades no longer has a Romanesque church, we can take comfort by knowing that it is surrounded by some of the most pure and beautiful examples of that culture. We return to Prades this spring and will contemplate the slopes of Canigou from the Castel Rose. We shall enjoy a meal on the Place de la Republique, drink our red wine from the porrón and toast Pablo Casals.

Location: 42.618234° 2.423730°

The Shadows of Grandeur (Dennis Aubrey)

This post is based on an exchange with Trish Worth on our post “The Capitals of Conques” last week. She wonders what the original builders would think with the current unpainted versions of their masterpieces. “We find them beautiful, but they probably wouldn’t. But then some of your commenters have said they don’t like the colours. Yet, if we could see all these sculptures in their bright colours, we probably wouldn’t use the term ‘dark ages’ any more.”

Ambulatory, Église Saint George, Bourbon-l’Archambault (Allier) Photo by PJ McKey

My response talked about Rose Macaulay’s famous “Pleasure of Ruins”. I thought mostly of her “random excursion into a fantastic world,” les ombres de la grandeur. It takes an effort of imagination to reconstruct the power and magnificence of history from the shadows left to us. We can imagine the stupefying magnificence of these lost civilizations because we are overwhelmed by the mere ruins. Because the ruins are by definition incomplete, we are can only reconstruct them in our imagination. This act of creation engages us to a degree independent from mere history. We are personally engaged – emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Basilique Saint Sernin, Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Since we see these churches today as spare and uncolored, the colors of the stone seem natural, and we imaginatively project backwards to a Middle Ages where this was also natural. We prefer our imaginative creation to the historical reality. In the same way we like to think of the Parthenon and its statuary as unadorned marble, not brightly painted. The “classical” beauty is more elegant and perfect in this imaginative world that we create in our minds.

Choir, looking west, Cathédrale Notre Dame de Laon, Laon (Aisne) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

In the same way some people like to think of life in the Middle Ages as brutish and short, that we are somehow better served in our own time than they were in theirs. It is often claimed that the average lifespan for peasants was 30 years or so. Given the high infant mortality, death in war, and childbirth, this may be the case. Investigation of thousands of skeletal remains from more than forty Merovingian cemeteries and excavations of a 9th to 11th century cemetery at Münsterhof in Zurich showed that women’s life expectancy was significantly less than men until they passed child-bearing age. By the age of 40, the gap began to close and by age of 60, the life expectancy was equal for men and women. That means that if one could survive childhood, there was a good chance of living to the age of 50 or 60. In other words, it wasn’t that much different than life in Europe in the 19th century. The brutish and cruel life that we imagined is not accurate.

Side aisle, Église Saint Martin, Artonne (Puy-de-Dôme) Photo by PJ McKey

Most of the time the churches that we investigate are more than ruins. Many are complete and living churches, but they are not of the world that we live in today. We can see and touch the buildings, but their spirit is of another time. Too often they are museums, architectural relics, and tourist destinations. Can one imagine that Notre Dame de Paris, with its long snaking lines of visitors far outside the western portal, ever truly served as a place of worship? In a way, viewing these buildings is like walking through a ghost town in the American West. The buildings stand, but they are filled with the driest sands and winds and weeds.

Crypt stairs in Eglise Notre Dame, Mont-devant-Sassy (Meuse) (Photo by Dennis Aubrey)

To get past this barrenness, we often try to understand with our minds, and just as often are led to a dead end. Many people look at the churches as the relic of a barbarous faith represented by the excesses of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion, and the Albigensian Crusade, but nobody built these wonderful structures to commemorate such brutality. The predispositions of the mind prevent the viewer from going further. An atheist might see them – as I have often seen expressed – as a vain and wasted glorification. But these ideas merely confirm our own vested intellectual pretensions.

Cloister, Église Abbatiale Notre Dame de Noirlac, Bruere-Allychamps (Cher) Photo by PJ McKey

So while we use our imaginations and what little history we may possess as a basis to understand the churches and the faith that created them. we must look also to something else. The last piece of the puzzle, that which engages us the most deeply, is the uncensored response of our heart to what we see. This leads us to the truer depth of understanding. We must see aspirations, fears, and hopes of generations of people who precede us. We must feel what they felt as much as possible, and make a great leap of emotional imagination. Only then can we sense the power of creation that moved the builders. Only then can we sense the threnody of history expressed in art.

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

On the way to his fateful end at Gallipoli, Rupert Brooke marked that he was passing Priam’s citadel at Troy and the ruined site of another great war of the legendary past.

And Priam and his fifty sons
Wake all amazed, and hear the guns,
And shake for Troy again.

Brooke made this leap across time and connected it with his own dark age. He died and was buried with those ancient heroes on the day of Shakespeare’s birth, April 23, 1915. He became part of what Rose Macaulay described as “the ghosts of dead ages sleeping together.”

Happy Accidents and the Well-Rememberéd Mr. Priebe (Dennis Aubrey)

Most of the time when I think of Poitiers, I picture the great Romanesque churches of Notre Dame la Grande, Saint Hilaire, Sainte Radegonde and the Cathédrale Saint Pierre. I remember taking one of my favorite pictures in the north side aisle of Notre Dame la Grande.

I had been waiting for the aisle to clear so that I could take a shot of the empty view. Some women kept going in and out, spoiling my long exposures, but I just kept shooting, hoping for a moment without intervention. In this shot, an elderly woman walked in, lit a candle in the distant chapel, and moved off. But through sheer serendipity, her movements were quick enough that they did not register in the exposure. This resulted in one of my favorite shots ever.

North Side Aisle, Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers (Vienne) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Serendipity played a role when I lived in Poitiers as a boy, which I have described in previous articles. My father was stationed at the Abbeville Caserne on the hill across the Clain River from downtown, beneath the monumental Notre Dame des Dunes that watches over the city. I went to 7th grade at the American Army school in Poitiers, where my favorite teacher was Mr. Donald Priebe. He taught English with a panache – he called the students “Mister” and “Miss” and was formally polite – and he challenged me as I had never been challenged before. He taught the etymology of words as well as vocabulary. When he diagrammed sentences, he was describing the architecture of our thinking as much as the construction of the words. This jowly, bespectacled and prim man wearing a bow tie was an inspiration to me.

Perhaps because Mr. Priebe was such a challenging teacher, we continually engaged in a war of nerves, but in very good spirits. It was a contest that I think he encouraged and used to push me further and further. One day in class he reviewed a reading assignment from the evening before. I am certain that he saw my furtive look indicating I had not read the selection, because he singled me out to answer the question “And who, Mr. Aubrey, was Eddie Rickenbacker?”

Completely ignorant of the answer, but unwilling to admit it, I blithely answered “A race car driver.” Mr. Priebe’s face took on the long-suffering look that I knew so well and the entire class knew that the Wrath of Priebe would be visited on me. And it was – he promptly assigned me a two page biography of Eddie Rickenbacker, due in class the next day. This was, of course, in addition to the regular assignment.

That evening I glumly went to the library and consulted the trusty Encyclopedia Americana to find out who Rickenbacker was. I discovered that he was a famous pilot, a World War I aviator who won the Medal of Honor, and aeronautics pioneer both in military and civilian applications. But in the midst of the long biography, almost as an afterthought, there was a short mention of Rickenbacker as a race car driver! Salvation! The rest of my evening was spent in a frenzy of research and writing.

Eddie Rickenbacker in his Maxwell on the Avenue of Palms, during either the 1915 American Grand Prize and Vanderbilt Cup in San Francisco.
(February or March 1915) Image in the public domain.

The next day in English class, Mr. Priebe immediately called me up to read my paper. Solemnly, I went to the front of the classroom and started. It was not a two-page paper, but an ostentatious six-page chef d’oeuvre, filled with details of Rickenbacker’s career as a race car driver before World War I, including his four competitions in the Indianapolis 500 and being a driver for the Peugeot team. I talked about his Maxwell cars, predecessors to the Chrysler line. I told how he got his sobriquet “Fast Eddie” from those racing days, recounted his first car (a 1905 Ford) and how his first race ended in an accident. I told how he eventually bought the Indianapolis Speedway. During the entire recitation, I kept a completely straight face, despite the open mouths of my fellow students who stared back and forth from me to Mr. Priebe. For myself, I didn’t dare look at him.

Finally, I turned theatrically to the last page of the document and read, “Mr. Rickenbacker was also famed as an aviator in later life.” There was a long moment of silence until Mr. Priebe sighed heavily and said, “Very well, Mr. Aubrey. You may take your seat.” I was a hero at lunch that day, basking in the admiration of my fellow students.

Eddie Rickenbacker and his riding mechanic Eddie O’Donnell in a Mason race car c. 1914 (Image courtesy of Auburn University Libraries

It was the first and only time that I beat him fair and square, all because of the happy accident of saying that Rickenbacker was a race car driver. Sometimes the Gods do indeed smile on fools.

The Many Hands of Mary’s Maid (Dennis Aubrey)

And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Luke 1:30-33

On the far wall of the north transept of the Basilique Sainte Foy in Conques is one of the finest sculptures in this magnificent pilgrimage church, the triptych of the Annunciation. As those familiar with Christian theophany know, the Annunciation celebrates the appearance of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to announce that she will conceive and give birth to Jesus, the Son of God. Fittingly, this event is considered the conception of Jesus and celebrated on March 25, nine months prior to his birth.

This sculpture is often attributed to the anonymous “Master of Conques,” whose work can be found throughout France and Spain, including Saint Isadore de Léon and the famed Puerta de las Platerias at Santiago. The ensemble features life-sized figures and is placed about 25 feet above the ground where it dominates the open end of the transept. Scholars think that the Annunciation was moved from the western portal at some time and replaced at this spot.

In this presentation, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, bowing slightly to her; his outstretched wings are crammed into the small space allotted to him. His hair is parted down the middle. The scroll that he is holding reads GABRIEL ANGELVS, “the Angel Gabriel.”

Annunciation panel, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Mary is represented as a young woman, with her hand raised in front of her. I have read descriptions of this Mary as “serene”, but do not agree. It seems that she is afraid of the angel and the gesture is one of submission. This tallies with the “Fear not” admonition in Luke, and also the passage in the apocryphal Gospel of James (Chapter XI), “And she looked about right and left, to see whence this voice came. And becoming afraid, she went away to her home, and set down the waterpot; and taking the purple she sat on her seat and spun it. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood before her, saying, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour before the Lord, and thou shalt conceive from his word.”

Further evidence that this depiction derives from the Gospel of James is found because Mary holds a distaff used for spinning, which was described only in that source. In this sculpture, she hand the distaff to a maid-servant, unseen from the front view.

From the side view we can clearly see the maidservant, but a mystery starts to present itself. The maid’s left hand holds a ball of wool attached to the distaff. The hand in the front view that takes the distaff also seems to represent her left hand. For this reason, residents of Conques describe the maid with three hands.

Detail, Annunciation panel, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

However, with a bit more investigation, I think that the mystery is solved. In the highlighted region, we appear to have another hand reaching up for the distaff. Since this is the right hand, the position of the wrist indicates that the hand should take the distaff from below, not on top.

Hand detail, Annunciation panel, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The final proof is a close investigation of the shot from the front. In the highlighted area we can see the hand of the maid, with her thumb visible on top between the first two fingers. This would be anatomically consistent with the “reaching” right arm from the previous detail, the hand taking the distaff from below.

Hand detail, Annunciation panel, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

This post is, of course, a bagatelle. This was not a scholarly dispute to be resolved, but merely a curiosity pointed out by the locals, probably to amuse themselves at our expense. We are satisfied that some unfortunate medieval sculptor didn’t make a gaffe and we can all sleep well knowing that this artist didn’t go down to the end of his days derided by his amused fellows.

Location: 44.599227° 2.398132°

The Capitals of Conques (Dennis Aubrey)

There is no doubt that the Basilique Sainte Foy in Conques is one of our favorite churches. We rediscover its marvels whenever we return to the Aveyron and have written about it several times, especially about the famous western tympanum which is one of the marvels of Romanesque sculpture. We have even written about how modern visitors respond to that tympanum.

View of village of Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Today’s post is another simple examination of the sculpture, this time of the interior historiated capitals. As an important pilgrimage church on the Camino de Santiago, the capitals were an important part of the pedagogical program of the basilica. The stories illustrated were designed to confirm the pilgrims in their Christian faith.

The first capital that we examine is in the ambulatory, the Sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham wields a sword while holding the hand of Isaac, seated to his right. The Hand of God points at the head of Abraham, denoting that He is speaking to Abraham, while the tremulous Isaac is sheltered by the wing of the angel. To the left of Abraham, we see the ram that he will later sacrifice in place of his son. This capital surely was created to remind the viewers of the suffering that God will endure when he sacrifices his only son.

Capital detail – the sacrifice of Isaac, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The next capital is part of a series on the life of Sainte Foy. This one, found at the edge of the north transept, features her arrest by Damien. Sainte Foy (Faith) was a young woman of Agen, martyred in the 3rd Century. In this depiction, she is on the far right of the ensemble, a picture of innocence. Her crowned Roman judge, Damien, is seated on the left and behind him a demon gives him counsel.

Capital detail – the arrest of Sainte Foy, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

In this second version of the Sainte Foy capital, we see more clearly on Sainte Foy’s side. The guard leads Foy by the hand to receive the judgment. Her hand makes a gesture of benediction, which foreshadows her end. When she refused to abandon her Christian faith and make the pagan sacrifices demanded of her, she was tortured to death with a red-hot brazier.

Capital detail – the arrest of Sainte Foy, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The next capital is a bit enigmatic. A frieze that runs across the top shows two oxen carrying the cross. The ox was one of the witnesses of the birth of Jesus and recognized him as the Son of God. This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 1:3, “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” On the left hand side of the capital, the hand of God bestows a blessing. The squatting figure between the angels is part of a pair. This one seems to be meditating – the figure on the opposite side is the same except that his hands are raised in prayer.

Capital detail – two oxen carrying the cross, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The next image is not a capital per se, but a figure in the squinch of the chancel dome. The winged archangel Gabriel bestows a benediction on the pilgrims passing below. In this figure we clearly see remains of the original polychrome painting.

Detail – Archangel Gabriel, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The pair of angels depicted in this next capital “sing the thrice holy God” at the Altar of Heaven while we here on earth chant at the altar of the church. “And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isiaih 6:3

Capital detail – angels singing, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The capital of “Christ with the chalices” has an interesting interpretation. As part of the Easter celebration in Matthew 26, the story is told that Christ offered two cups. One cup is for the forgiveness of sins while the other is the cup of wrath and judgment. One cup brings life and the other death. Christ chose one for himself, and drank the cup of curses so that we might drink the cup of blessings. When I saw this capital in situ, I was not sure of the interpretation because I couldn’t see the nimbus around Christ’s head. In the photograph, however, it is visible in low relief behind Jesus’ head.

Capital detail – Christ with the chalices, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

This last capital delights me because of its setting. It features the combat between two knights jousting. The carving is wonderful and the abstract pattern above works very well as a frame. But the grimacing figure in the background supporting the weight of the arch above him is magnificent. All these carvings were not necessarily given an instructive mission. Some just seem to be reactions to life and its burdens.

Capital detail – combat between two knights, Basilique Sainte Foy, Conques (Aveyron) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

There are many other wonderful capitals in the Basilique Sainte Foy and a myriad of other sculptural ensembles. This important pilgrimage church stands almost completely intact and is a wonder of the Romanesque world of a thousand years ago. It is well worth an extended visit where you can appreciate just how marvelous it remains today.

Location: 44.599227° 2.398132°

The Church of the Meadows on the Loire (Dennis Aubrey)

Just five miles northwest of Saumur on the picturesque Loire River lies the small village of Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux, part of commune of Chênehutte-Trèves-Cunault. Chênehutte was the site of a Gaulish oppidum and later an important Roman camp that bivouacked half a legion, or around 3,000 men. The camp sat on a hill overlooking the Loire and guarded the road from Angers to Tours. Given this history, the name “Chênehutte” always makes me think of the native huts of the Gauls, made of oak (“hutte” and “chêne”), and of the character Astérix, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo.

Astérix ( René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo)

What a wonderful vision and it makes plenty of sense, but the notion is completely wrong; we’ll have to look elsewhere for historical evidence of the little warrior! The name comes from Carnonensis, the Roman name, transformed into Canahutia in the 11th century. Just a few hundred yards from the Roman military camp is the Romanesque church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux. The church owes its name to the meadows bordering the adjacent river Loire.

Loire River, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

This bulk of the church was built in the 11th century church with the local limestone. The apse, belltower and side door are 12th century. One enters from the north portal and we immediately see the simple arcades supported by columns with large decorated capitals. Above is the high barrel vault spanning the narrow nave. There is no clerestory level so the interior is quite dark.

Nave arcades,
Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The east end of the church features an apse and two echeloned chapels at the end of the side aisle. The apse is preceded by a chancel crossing beneath the clocher. The choir is composed of a single bay topped with a barrel vault and a cul-de-four vault at the far end. This last section is pierced with four windows.

Apse,
Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

The side aisles are narrow with a tall window in each bay of the arcade providing the only interior light to the nave. Each side aisle is covered with a half-barrel vault. In the distance we see the side chapel on the south side of the apse.

South side aisle,
Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

In this view of the north side aisle we see the chapel at the end and the choir in the distance. We can also see just how narrow this small church is, just the right size for the small community of Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux where it serves as the parish church. This explains how well-founded the church remains to this day.

North side aisle, Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by PJ McKey

The north portal is the main entrance of the church. I believe that this was a 19th century contribution where the west portal was moved stone-by-stone to this new location, but I haven’t gotten confirmation of that yet.

North portal, Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by PJ McKey

Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux is an almost textbook example of the Angevin parish church that still remain in the region, the center of that dynastic power in the Middle Ages. Small and elegant, it is a reminder that it was not only monks who built the Romanesque churches, but the lay faithful as well.

Arcade arch, Notre-Dame-de-la-Prée-de-Tuffeaux, Chênehutte-les-Tuffeaux (Maine-et-Loire) Photo by PJ McKey

And now for a little confession – it may be a stretch to have this post open with a picture of Astérix, but he was one of my first comic book heroes. When we lived in Chauvigny, I would have my hair cut at a small barbershop on the square in the middle of town. It was much different that the factory-like military barbers we frequented most of my life. The shop walls were painted a baby blue and the interior had a wonderful perfumed air. But most important, the owners provided an unending supply of comics featuring Astérix and his pal, Obélix.

Astérix & Obélix ( René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo)

Location: 47.307803° -0.152978°

The Crucifix Composition (Dennis Aubrey)

Most of our posts are discussions of the architecture or history of churches, and sometimes meditations on their meaning in our lives today. Today’s post is about our photography itself. The previous article on the slightly eccentric composition of PJ’s photo of Saint Lazare in Avallon led me to think about some themes in our Via Lucis compositions. We often use doors to dramatically frame the shots, especially when there is high contrast between the interior and exterior lighting. And on reflection, I’ve noticed that we’ve anchored many interesting shots on the crucifix.

This first shot was a very early effort in our Via Lucis project, where PJ captured an astonishing image of two Christs, the one bearing witness to the suffering of the crucified other. In framing the shot, PJ could easily have moved just a little to the left and revealed the entire image of the fresco, but leaving the painted Jesus partially concealed was a brilliant stroke. This photograph demonstrated to me the artistry that she continues to display every time we go out to the field.

Basilique Notre Dame, Paray-le-Monial (Saône-et-Loire)

The second featured shot is in the north side aisle of Saint Austremoine in Issoire. This church is both easy and difficult to shoot at the same time; easy because it is so colorful and filled with wonderful vistas. It is difficult because there is so much competition for the eye that we miss really seeing the church sometimes. The trees are so interesting that we can’t sense the forest. But in this photograph, the tableau with two crucifixes framing a pieta at the end of the blood-red aisle is another startling photographic moment. It has been there every time we go but is almost invisible unless you are reminded to look.

Basilique Saint Austremoine, Issoire (Puy-de-Dôme) Photo by PJ McKey

The lovely crucifix at Saint Pierre de Beaumont is a conventional shot distinguished by the quality of the soft colored light coming in the window above. In looking at the shot, the eye immediately goes to the crucifix and then drifts up to the window. The way the colors of the light in the window gently blend together completes this photograph for me.

Abbaye Saint Pierre de Beaumont, Beaumont (Puy-de-Dôme) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

I don’t know why this photograph of Notre-Dame de Saint-Saturnin moves me so much, but remember that it took quite a bit of time to get it exactly right, and this composition is the only one that works. In contrast to the previous photo at Saint Pierre de Beaumont, the eye goes immediately to the lighted area and then we notice the crucifix, dimly lit by reflected sunlight. And I like the detail where the small arch forms a kind of halo over the crucified figure.

Église Notre-Dame de Saint-Saturnin, Saint-Saturnin (Puy-de-Dôme) Photo by Dennis Aubrey

Of course the crucifix is omnipresent in these churches so there are many opportunities to use them in compositions, but these are some of my personal favorites.