Notre Dame des Fontaines in la Brigue

INA00069

Note

Notre Dame des Fontaines in la Brigue

Collection title

12-13 Côte d'azur

INA00069

Source

INA (FR)

First broadcast date

11/07/1989

Production year

1989

Abstract

Reporting on the beautiful chapel called Notre Dame des Fontaines in the territory of the village of La Brigue, in the Upper Roya valley. Built in the fourteenth century, the chapel is particularly remarkable for the frescoes that cover the entire wall, work attributed to the painters Jean Baleison and Jean Canavesio at the end of the fifteenth century. Testimony of Jean-Louis Fontana, cultural attaché, who recalled that this valley allowed trade with Piedmont and Liguria, of the pastor of La Brigue, who pointed out the anachronisms of some representations of the Passion and of Jean-Pierre Brenda, mayor of the village.

Type

video

Production companies

France 3 Nice - Own production

Broadcaster

FTV - F3

Audiovisual form

Magazine

Personalities

Fontana Jean-Louis
Brenda Jean-Pierre

Primary theme

Painting

Secondary themes

Tourism and cultural sites / Architecture

Credits / Cast

Molinengo Jean Marie - Journalist

Period of events

From 1000 to 1500

Map locations

France - South East - La Brigue

Original language

French

Media running time

7m13

Context

Notre Dame des Fontaines in la Brigue

Maryline Crivello

This news item shows the frescos in the church of Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines at Brigue, up in the hills behind Nice at 2,600 feet. The commune of La Brigue only became part of France in 1947 as part of the Treaty of Paris [cf Repmed00213]

From the outside, the religious building is not very spectacular. It was built probably in the 12th century and gets its name from the seven local springs ("fontaines" or fountains) which had a reputation for miracles. A lawyer's note in 1375 shows that Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines was then an important place for pilgrimage. That is explained by the fact that La Brigue is on the main mule route in the Roya valley.

Inside, the walls of the church are entirely covered by mural paintings (more than 200 square metres) made in 1491-92 by two well-known artists who seem to have worked together: Giovanni Balesion and Giovanni Canavesio. The frescos have given the church the nickname of "the sistine chapel of the southern Alps".

Giovanni Baleison is a painter from Piedmont, active on both sides of the Alps in the late 15th century, particularly in Tende, a rival village of La Brigue, where he decorated the chapel of the Annonciation. He also worked at St Etienne de Tinée and at Venanson. In this chapel he is responsible for the scenes of Mary and the evangelists on the choir walls. His style is characterised by the softness of the faces, the richness of the clothing and his care over detail.

Also from Piedmont, and also having worked at St Etienne de Tinée, Giovanni Canavesio painted most of the frescos at Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines.He worked on the scenes of Christ's childhood on the side walls, Christ's Passion and the Final Judgement. His style, different from Baleison's, is characterised by movement and violence.Thus in his depiction of Judas hanging himself, Canavesio worked hard on the detail of a body in great suffering. Judas' face is twisted in agony and his stomach is opened, a style expressing the anguish of this war-filled period as well as the beginnings of humanist thought, more interested in the human being and his body.

La Brique also possesses other historic monuments and its church has a Louis Bréa retable. Bréa led a true school of painters, known as the Nicois Primitives, whose paintings (second half of the 15th century) are the treasures of the region's sanctuaries.

Bibliography:

Philippe de Beauchamp, L'Art religieux dans les Alpes-Maritimes, Aix-en-Provence, Édisud, 1990.

Benoît Avena, Symbolique, Histoire et sagesse des fresques de la Chapelle Notre-Dame des Fontaines, La Brigue, 1998.