Monday 17 March 2008

"When I work, I believe in God"

Thursday March 13 - Saturday March 15, Cote d'Azur, France

Two days in the south of France to film at one remarkable location whilst gale force winds and rain batter Britain. What’s not to like?
Vence, half an hour inland from Nice, is lesser-known that its close neighbour St Paul de Vence. It’s a real bustling town (unlike St Paul, which has become a medieval theme park overrun by tourist hordes and souvenir tat). Henri Matisse’s modernist Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary is on the hill overlooking Vence’s Roman walls. Uniquely, its creation was the first time that an artist entirely designed every detail of a monument, from the architecture to the furniture, the candlesticks and even the priest’s robes. As such it is a sacred art monument. For Matisse, “this work required me four years of an exclusive and tireless effort and it is the fruit of my whole working life. In spite of all its imperfections, I consider it my masterpiece”.

Artists have famously been drawn to this area in the hills above Nice since the 1920s and a heyday period saw Matisse, Braque, Calder, Leger, Picasso and Picabia amongst others dine regularly at a local hotel where famously meals were often paid for with canvasses.
Matisse settled in Nice in 1942 and a few months later, fearing a wartime evacuation, moved to Vence. He was 73 and in poor health recovering from intestinal surgery. For a couple of weeks he was looked after by a young nurse, Monique Bourgeois, with whom he struck up a friendship. She subsequently became a nun -- Sister Jacques-Marie -- and their friendship continued. In the local convent the nuns had no chapel and were using makeshift quarters in a garage with a leaky roof. When Matisse learned of this, after extensive discussions, he offered to design a chapel in the detail of which he immersed himself, beginning in 1947.
From the outside, the discrete chapel, used daily by both the nuns and the local community, can only be recognised by its blue and white roof tiles and wrought iron cross of crescent moons and golden flames. Inside, everything is white – walls, ceilings, doors, except for the yellow, green and ultramarine of the semi-abstract stained glass windows.

Most tourists only take a few minutes to visit the chapel, as it is quite small. But you really need to spend time in it, if you can, to experience the extraordinary way the sun floods through the windows, bathing it in colour as it moves round from the south-east to the south-west, creating changing patterns of reflected pools of colour on the white marble floor and the walls.
Our interviewee, Dominican Sister Marie-Pierre, still marvels at this changing play of light throughout the day and explains the use of just three chosen colours: blue, to represent the sea and the sky, green (nature) and yellow (the light of the sun and god). Crucially, the blue and green glass is transparent whilst Matisse agonised over finding the right opaque yellow glass before he was satisfied. Because yellow is associated with the creator and we cannot see God with our eyes, it would not have been appropriate for yellow to be reflected inside the chapel. The green and blue, however, reflect as green and violet, because intriguingly the red of the sun combines with the blue glass to form violet.
Sister Marie-Pierre tells us that when the chapel was consecrated in 1951 many of the sisters were at first deeply shocked by Matisse’s three ceramic murals, in particular by the Stations of the Cross on the end wall. These looked to them like badly scrawled images, but in time they got used to his radical drawing style. She also relates that Picasso was very jealous of his friend’s achievement. She doesn’t like to speculate on whether Matisse, a presumed atheist, became religious, quoting only the artist’s own reflections on his creative powers: “When I work, I believe in God”

She finds the chapel’s beauty, simplicity and serenity highly conducive to prayer. I ask her if she misses the decoration and trappings of a traditional church. “Why would I?” she replies with some bafflement. “We have everything we need here. Matisse really gave us a wonderful gift.” She is certainly right about that.

Filming completed, there’s just time for a drink at that hotel, the Colombe d’Or, to admire some more Matisses, amongst other great artworks, and to see photos of him on the hotel terrace from those extraordinary years. No culinary splendours to write about this time. We could only afford an aperitif, but I’m not asking for sympathy, as it came with toasted almonds, olives and top quality charcuterie. (Linda Zuck)

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