Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste

English translation

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History

Chalmazel is situated in the west of the Loire territory at its confines with the Puy-de-Dôme. This small rural commune was transformed into a winter sports resort from 1953, the year the first mechanical lift was installed. But the village, on the edge of the Livradois-Forez Regional Nature Park, retains an old urban fabric and an impressive château-fort of the Marcilly-Talaru. The church was rebuilt in 1881, on the site of the former building which was demolished. This is a work carried out by Charles-Marie Franchet (1838-1902), an architect who worked in the team of Pierre Bossan before becoming his associate between 1869 and 1872. For the Chalmazel project, he employed the Lyonnais contractor Etienne Clément. A bell tower with an octagonal roof was added in 1936 by another master builder, but this final addition respects Franchet's initial structure and his decorative style. Inside the church, sixteen stained-glass windows which light the building are the work of Théodore-Gérard Hanssen (1885-1957), a Belgian-born artist and master glazier. This project resulted from the friendship between the artist and the village priest, Léon Noyer, born in the trenches of the Great War. Hanssen is said to have then promised his friend that he would create the stained-glass windows for the church of his first posting. Hanssen was wounded in 1917. During his convalescence in Paris, he married and settled in the capital. The promise was kept late, between 1942 and 1944. The production of the glass came from the Saint-Just glassworks.

Description

The typology of the church is inspired by common models proposed in architectural reviews. Of an eclectic style that is predominantly Romanesque Revival, the whole is elegant but very simple. The rectangular plan is oriented north-south. The polychromy of the stone necessitated the client importing stone from Volvic and white sandstone which complemented the use of local granite, the latter being difficult to work. These material choices enhance the composition through the contrast of luminous pale sandstone with the blue-grey highlighting and thus the divisions of spaces and decorating the contours of openings. Inside, the nave, flanked by two aisles, leads to a semi-circular choir. The general décor, like the exterior, is simple but carefully executed; all the intrados are painted in the manner of ribbons; the keys of the groin vaults are also decorated with paintings in the nave. The iconography of the stained-glass windows deals in parallel with the life of Jesus and that of Saint John the Baptist; the openings of the aisle recall their youth, employing red tones and, to the west, adulthood and death with blue tones. The particularity of the orientation was used by the artist to amplify these warm or cool tones according to the sunrise and sunset and the subject treated. The request for protection which emanates jointly from the municipality and the Forez Arts and Heritage Country, initially concerned the stained-glass windows (resolution to that effect).