| In Provence, in the mountains, is a chapel dedicated to Saint Pancrace. It is a very small chapel in the middle of an old family cemetery dating from the eighteenth century. But the chapel is much older, it is Romanesque and it is the porch that precedes it that we are going to talk because the walls are beautifully decorated by frescoes admirable Girieud, Lombard and Dufrénoy. (....) Here first: Adoration of the Shepherds, Pierre Girieud: it is morning, a clear morning treated in a green range. Near Joseph is the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus on her knees. The people of the shepherds and the three kings gathered on their knees. A mage, his forehead crowned with gold, with a heavy, fleur-de-lis coat hanging at his shoulders, humbly presents a rich piece of gold; behind him is a gigantic negro, laden with treasure and, to offer them to the little Jesus, another of the troop unloads the wealth they bore, the great camels stretching their necks. Near the child, the shepherds are prostrate, s the youngest of them advance his thin face, he seems stunned with admiration, and tenderness that there in his eyes can be read also in the eyes of his His companions. Further on the road, another procession laden with presents, and the decoration is a kind of paraphrase of the one where the chapel itself is. You can see it at the very bottom of the fresco, this chapel of Saint Pancrace, with the long cypresses that surround it and the pyramid of which we spoke earlier. (....)
reproduction of the fresco |