THE CÔTE d’Azur, in southern France, is not a holiday location we tend to connect with chapels, but here’s one reason why we should: Henri Matisse.
The artist regarded Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire – or Chapel of the Rosary – in Vence, inland of Nice, as his masterpiece, with its three magnificent stained-glass windows, its stations of the cross painted on a single wall as one cohesive composition and its powerful images of the Madonna and Child and St Dominic.
When you arrive it’s easy to believe you’re in the wrong place. Could this simple white building really be “one of the great religious structures of the 20th century”? Could it be that century’s “greatest ensemble artwork”? Yes, it could.
Matisse (above, at the chapel) began the project at the age of 77, after having surgery for cancer. In fact, so crippled was he by various ailments that he could work only from a wheelchair, painting with a brush at the end of a stick strapped to his arm.
What led him there? While he was recovering from his operation, Matisse had been looked after by a young part-time nurse, Monique Bourgeois, to whom he became strongly attached. When she entered the Dominican convent in Vence in 1943, he bought a house in the town. And when she asked him to help design and decorate a new chapel, he agreed. It was built and decorated between 1949 and 1951.
Matisse was involved in every part of the work. He chose the warm brown stone of the altar because of its resemblance to the colour of bread. He designed the bronze crucifix on the altar, the candle holders, the small tabernacle and even the priests’ vestments.
** La Maison d’Accueil Lacordaire, Vence, France, 00-33-493-580326, http://pagesperso-orange.fr/maison.lacordaire
** Do you know of a hidden gem? E-mail us at go@irishtimes.com