📍 🇫🇷 Lost in Tonnerre

Everything was running smoothly when we arrived at the train station. Tranquility, birds singing, sunset lights poured on an embracing river, a small church appearing high on the hill. Like a peaceful scene from Lord of the Rings, way way before Mordor.

But unfortunately, the small St. Peter's Church is under renovation. Barriers and scaffolding. "It's been closed for three years now", some annoyed inhabitants tell me. Not the first time this has happened as this 9th century building was damaged and renovated on many occasions.

So we made up for it as best we could with the portal, of which our very own French historian Henri Focillon tells us "that here sculpture detaches itself from architecture to accept the suggestions of painting...". Translation: here we leave the monumental and stony age of the Gothic era and we put forward mankind - humane feelings, humane expressions - instead of cold moralistic biblical figures. Slowly but surely, we enter the Renaissance era. Individuality and festivity front and center. In our photos, this results in the small humanized angels in the main vault at the entrance.

There you go... Next time, Tonnerre, let's have a look inside?

____ Sources ____

>> Henri Focillon, "The Art of the West in the Middle Ages", 1938