Église Saint-Thuriau

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

This church has a Latin cross plan. It is a construction of the 15th and 16th centuries. Access to the nave is via a charming small porch which houses a 15th-century door, decorated with set-back mouldings resting on colonettes with capitals. The transept and choir are from the 16th century. The gable of the south transept arm is adorned with a door surmounted by an ogee arch with a fleuron, pilasters and sculpted animals. The windows have flamboyant tracery. The paintings which cover the entire timber ceiling are decorated with subjects borrowed from the life of Saint-Thuriau and figures depicted in costumes from the time of execution (1779). Our predecessors took pleasure in these pictorial scenes on the wooden vaults of their churches. They generally recalled the salient features of the life of the patron saint. These works were often mediocre or poor, it must be admitted, because talented painters were, in our countryside, even rarer than good wood sculptors. They were nonetheless suited to the atmosphere, contributed to the richness of the holy place, honoured the patron whose principal life features became fixed in the imagination of the faithful. In the absence of costume knowledge, the artists borrowed from their own time the clothing of the characters depicted and thus left to posterity an added attraction. If the hardwood roof structures have, since the 15th and 16th centuries, demonstrated fine resistance to the moisture of our climate, the timber cladding of these structures has often shown weak defence against the weather. Generally, white wood was used, and perhaps there was no concern to exploit this wood in the most favourable season for its preservation. In any case, very few churches or chapels remain whose timber ceilings are still decorated as those of Saint-Thuriau are. The painting of timber vault cladding only recalls from a great distance the frescoes on walls and stone vaults practised in religious art in the Middle Ages. One of the finest specimens of this latter type remaining to us in Brittany is that of Notre-Dame de Kernascleden. However, these paintings on timber constitute, just as much as the retable-chevets in superposed orders, a characteristic of the interior decoration of religious buildings in the 17th and 18th centuries. The sablières are abundantly carved, particularly those of the transept, which date from the 16th century. Inside, leaning against the church is found a monumental wooden calvary from the 18th century.