Quercy roman: abbaye de Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne
This has happened before, and now a conjunction of events is making it happen again: I have run out of photographs to upload to Flickr. The main event responsible for this sorry state of affairs is the (more and more habitual, alas!) heat waves of the summer: I feel increasingly unwilling to go out into the blazing heat carrying backpack and tripod and cutting short the outside photos, only to find refuge in the relative coolness of the inside. Then, there is also the fact that I am quite busy shooting for a book project for the Fondation du Patrimoine, which does force me to travel all over the Auvergne–Rhône-Alpes region to shoot anyway, making it quite painful enough in this heat to make me refuse to add any more discomfort to the situation.
Consequently, as I have done before when I happened to run out of stuff to upload, I have decided to re-process some earlier photographs in black-and-white and post them. As some of you know, my mentor in architecture photography was Dom Angelico Surchamp, osb, and he was of course a great fan of black-and-white, and famous for his Hasselblad and view camera shots in the Zodiaque books. Therefore, I am always tempted to process some of what I produce in black-and-white and I welcome the opportunity to do it. I hope you will also enjoy this different approach.
Under each photo, I will also reproduce the caption I published under the original, color one, so that the people who missed it the first time may know what the photo is about.
In the old French province of Quercy, the small town of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne lies almost on the border of the modern-day département of Corrèze, nested along the meanders of River Dordogne. This is where, in 855, local lord Raoul (or Rodolfus) de Turenne funded the foundation of a Benedictine abbey. To further warrant the development of the budding abbey, Raoul gifted it the relics of three saints, Prime, Félicien and Félicité, which he had obtained in Rome. During the Middle Ages, the veneration for saintly relics was such that possession of them would guarantee a steady flow of pilgrims. Very few of those were wealthy (although some were), but their sheer numbers created richness wherever they congregated, regardless of the amount spent individually by each pilgrim. Additionally, the abbey was on a side itinerary to Compostela, although not on one of the main routes, which also brought a steady inflow of pilgrims who needed to be sheltered for the night and fed.
The abbey church as we see it now was begun in the early 1100s and replaced an earlier one. Parts from the 800s and 900s still remain. Listed very early on as a Historic Landmark in 1843, the church was strongly influenced by architectural traits from the neighboring province of Limousin. It was affiliated with Cluny in 1076, which is certainly what prompted the design and erection of a new, larger church, which consequently retains many characteristics of Cluniac architecture and art as well.
I visited this abbey church during my “Grand Tour” of 2022, among at least half a dozen first-class masterpieces of Romanesque architecture and art; Beaulieu ranks easily among them, even though it is probably the less well-known.
The off-white and beige stones inside the church are a welcome change from the dark ones of Mauriac or Orcival. The church is wide, tall, deep, impressive in every way and perfectly balanced and harmonious in its proportions. It is a great architectural achievement with few historied capitals or other adornments.... but how those stones can sing...!
Quercy roman: abbaye de Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne
This has happened before, and now a conjunction of events is making it happen again: I have run out of photographs to upload to Flickr. The main event responsible for this sorry state of affairs is the (more and more habitual, alas!) heat waves of the summer: I feel increasingly unwilling to go out into the blazing heat carrying backpack and tripod and cutting short the outside photos, only to find refuge in the relative coolness of the inside. Then, there is also the fact that I am quite busy shooting for a book project for the Fondation du Patrimoine, which does force me to travel all over the Auvergne–Rhône-Alpes region to shoot anyway, making it quite painful enough in this heat to make me refuse to add any more discomfort to the situation.
Consequently, as I have done before when I happened to run out of stuff to upload, I have decided to re-process some earlier photographs in black-and-white and post them. As some of you know, my mentor in architecture photography was Dom Angelico Surchamp, osb, and he was of course a great fan of black-and-white, and famous for his Hasselblad and view camera shots in the Zodiaque books. Therefore, I am always tempted to process some of what I produce in black-and-white and I welcome the opportunity to do it. I hope you will also enjoy this different approach.
Under each photo, I will also reproduce the caption I published under the original, color one, so that the people who missed it the first time may know what the photo is about.
In the old French province of Quercy, the small town of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne lies almost on the border of the modern-day département of Corrèze, nested along the meanders of River Dordogne. This is where, in 855, local lord Raoul (or Rodolfus) de Turenne funded the foundation of a Benedictine abbey. To further warrant the development of the budding abbey, Raoul gifted it the relics of three saints, Prime, Félicien and Félicité, which he had obtained in Rome. During the Middle Ages, the veneration for saintly relics was such that possession of them would guarantee a steady flow of pilgrims. Very few of those were wealthy (although some were), but their sheer numbers created richness wherever they congregated, regardless of the amount spent individually by each pilgrim. Additionally, the abbey was on a side itinerary to Compostela, although not on one of the main routes, which also brought a steady inflow of pilgrims who needed to be sheltered for the night and fed.
The abbey church as we see it now was begun in the early 1100s and replaced an earlier one. Parts from the 800s and 900s still remain. Listed very early on as a Historic Landmark in 1843, the church was strongly influenced by architectural traits from the neighboring province of Limousin. It was affiliated with Cluny in 1076, which is certainly what prompted the design and erection of a new, larger church, which consequently retains many characteristics of Cluniac architecture and art as well.
I visited this abbey church during my “Grand Tour” of 2022, among at least half a dozen first-class masterpieces of Romanesque architecture and art; Beaulieu ranks easily among them, even though it is probably the less well-known.
The off-white and beige stones inside the church are a welcome change from the dark ones of Mauriac or Orcival. The church is wide, tall, deep, impressive in every way and perfectly balanced and harmonious in its proportions. It is a great architectural achievement with few historied capitals or other adornments.... but how those stones can sing...!