Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence
The Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (German Rosary Chapel of Vence), also known as "Chapelle Matisse", is a small chapel that was built for nuns of the Dominican Order in Vence on the French Riviera and inaugurated on June 25, 1951 by the Bishop of Nice has been. It is based on plans by Henri Matisse . The chapel on a hill, which looks rather inconspicuous from the outside, contains, among other things, wall decorations and glass windows based on the artist's designs. Matisse called the chapel his masterpiece.
Emergence
“In the chapel, the main task was to balance a surface filled with light and color and a blind wall that was only animated by a graphic in black and white. For me, this chapel is the fulfillment of a whole life devoted to work. A tremendous, sincere and arduous effort finally blossomed in her. "
When Matisse had had cancer surgery in Nice in 1941 , he enlisted the help of a young nurse, Monique Bourgeois, while convalescing . She also served as his model and was involved in the preparatory work for Matisse's artist book Jazz , in the accompanying text of which the artist formulated the clearest statements with a focus on Christian topics.
In 1946, Monique Bourgeois in a decided as a nun convent of the Dominican Sisters in Vence enter, where she received the name Sister Jacques-Marie. There she met Matisse again, who had bought a house nearby. She planned stained glass windows for the shed that served as the sisters' chapel and asked Matisse for his advice. The artist decided to plan the building, windows and furnishings, even the liturgical vestments and altar ceilings, which was a new experience for him.
Matisse was already 77 years old at the time; The planning and construction of the rosary chapel occupied him almost exclusively for four years. A new building was built with the help of Brother Rayssiguier, an architecture student, and under the direction of the architect Auguste Perret . The Dominican priest and art critic Marie-Alain Couturier , who was already involved in the artistic design of several Catholic churches after the Second World War , joined the project. The foundation stone was laid in December 1949. Sister Jacques-Marie, who died in 2004 at the age of 84, wrote a documentary in 1992 about the friendly collaboration with Henri Matisse.
Architecture and furnishings of the chapel
The L-shaped chapel, fifteen meters long and six meters wide, is built on a hill. The blue and white jagged roof has a large cross. Above the stained glass window of the apse , a ceramic tympanum shows the Virgin Mary with her son. In the interior, the altar in the apse marks the place where the L-shapes meet. The larger room was intended for visitors and students, the smaller one for the nuns who lived and taught there.
| Chapelle du Rosaire |
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| Henri Matisse , 1949 |
| Glass window, general overview |
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Link to the picture |
There are three glass windows, three black and white murals, a stone altar, a bronze cross, carved doors and priestly clothes. Matisse worked longest on the glass windows; his designs consisted of colored paper cuts that had already been the basis of his work for Jazz . He derived the theme of his stained glass from the biblical Revelation of John - an abstract tree of life as a symbol of the Golden Age adorns the windows next to the altar. These consist of narrow, high strips, connected by white wall sections that act as stems; the yellow and blue leaves of the tree of life on a green background have a shovel shape. The smaller window in front of the altar is decorated with cactus-like shapes in bright yellow on a blue-green background. The other walls are adorned with ceramic panels with black brush drawings: in a reduced form they show the Passion of Christ , the Virgin Mary with the child and Saint Dominic , founder of the Dominican order. The artist Jean Vincent de Crozals served Matisse as a model for the Christ. With his slim body, dull skin and passionate fine facial features, de Crozals was predestined for this task. Because he was very religious and possessed extraordinary intuition, he could easily identify with anything that touched him strongly, and Matisse recognized this quickly. At that time, Matisse was already so restricted in his mobility that he used a long stick to use a wheelchair to place the parts of the picture in paper form, the translation of which was done by craftsmen in tile form.
Copies of Matisse's priestly clothing are kept in the Vatican Museum of Modern Religious Art. The Center Pompidou in Paris shows sketches of the designs .
See also
Literature and film
- Henri Matisse: La Chapelle du Rosaire . In: color and likeness . Fischer, Frankfurt 1960, pp. 105-110
- Volkmar Essers: Matisse . Taschen, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-6365-7
- Sœur Jacques-Marie: Henri Matisse: La Chapelle de Vence , Grégoire Gardette, Nice 1993, ISBN 2-909767-00-0
- A Model for Matisse , documentary by Barbara F. Freed, 2003
- Rolf Italiaander : Henri Matisse is building a church . In: Die Zeit , No. 22/1950
Web links
- Vence website
- Vence Tourism website
- Film Model for Matisse Carnegie Mellon Today, June 30, 2003
Individual evidence
- ↑ Volkmar Essers: Matisse , p. 87 f
- ↑ Volkmar Essers: Matisse , p. 88
- ↑ a b Gottlieb Leinz: Art and Asceticism . In: Christoph Brockhaus (Ed.): Museum and Church. Religious aspects of modern art , Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg, April 15 to May 20, 1991, p. 31, ISBN 3-923576-78-1
- ↑ a b Volkmar Essers: Matisse , p. 88 f
- ↑ Chapelle du Rosaire. amb-coteazur.com, accessed April 12, 2009 .
- ^ Marcel Billot: Henri Matisse: The Vence Chapel, The Archive of a Creation . Skira, 1999
- ↑ See Alice Barber's report as a web link.
- ↑ Annelies Nelck : Matisse à Vence - L'olivier du Rêve , 1998, ISBN 2-9512982-0-X , pp. 154–158
- ↑ Alex Benvenuto: Henri Matisse - Nice et Vence 1917-1954 . 1st edition. Serre, 2016, ISBN 978-2-86410-626-5 , pp. 65-66 .
Coordinates: 43 ° 43 ′ 39.3 ″ N , 7 ° 6 ′ 45.9 ″ E