Female saints look up to heaven: detail of southern frieze painted in rustic Baroque style by local or regional artists of the early 1700s below the wooden boat-shaped vault over the nave of the medieval Eglise Saint-Martin (Church of St Martin) at Lévignacq in the Landes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.
Lévignacq, Landes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France: Elected or Chosen female saints raise their eyes towards heaven in this section of a concave frieze painted, in the early 1700s, on timbers above the southern nave wall and below the boat-shaped wooden nave ceiling of the medieval Eglise Saint-Martin (Church of St Martin). The complete southern frieze features 26 female martyrs and saints such as St Clothilde, St Anne, St Margaret of Antioch and St Lucia. Its counterpart on the northern side of the nave depicts 35 Elected or Chosen men, including monks, popes, cardinals, bishops, prophets, a man wearing a turban and saints such as St Dominic, St Nicholas of Myra and St Anthony of Padua. The ceiling ‘hull’ was decorated between 1713 and 1715 with three large biblical scenes painted in a grandiose but rustic Counter-Reformation Baroque style. The colourful depictions of the Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds, the Trinity, and the Transfiguration of Christ are probably by a Bordeaux-based painter named Jean or Jacques Fautier, a member of the Paris Academy of Art. The church, in the Pays de Born countryside of the Landes des Gascogne, close to the French Atlantic coast, is filled with many other artworks, including remains of 15th century frescoes in the choir vault.
Size: 4256px × 2832px
Location: Lévignacq, Pays de Born, Landes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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