Grotesque faces stick out their tongues. Square detail of medieval carving over portal to the abbey church at Saint-Génis-des Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, France
Saint-Génis-des Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, France: grotesque medieval faces stick out their tongues - perhaps to ward off evil or to insult the Devil - over the portal to the église abbatiale St-Michel or abbey church of St Michael. This church was probably built at the same time as the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Génis-des Fontaines, in the late 700s, and was re-opened in 1846 as the village’s parish church. The Abbey of Saint-Génis-des Fontaines was founded by a “pious man” called Sentimir in about 780 AD, during the reign of Charlemagne (Charles the Great). It was dedicated to Saint Genesius and Saint Michael, to whom the surviving church is still dedicated. The abbey was destroyed by the Normans in the mid-800s, but was then rebuilt and further developed, with a richly sculpted Romanesque marble cloister added in the late 1200s. Foundation stones laid in the 700s are visible within the church.
Size: 2664px × 2663px
Location: Former abbey church, Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, France
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: abbey, ancient, art, benedictine, carved, carving, christian, christianity, church, , europe, european, expression, face, faces, facial, fontaines, france, french, genesius, gesture, grotesque, head, heads, insult, insulting, kerr, leer, leering, marble, mediaeval, medieval, michael, mouths, occitanie, open, parish, protrude, protruding, pyréées-orientales, religious, rude, saint, saint-énis-des, sculpted, sculpture, st, st-énis, stick, sticking, stuck, terence, tongue, tongues, ugly, vulgar
