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Tuesday 24 December updated on 12-24-2024 at 8:06
Tuesday 24 December updated on 12-24-2024 at 8:06
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Inspired by great artists like Bernini, Borromoni, Guarino Garini, Baroque art appeared in Italy and developed in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. At this time, the churches and chapels of Savoy, often of medieval origin, were enlarged or transformed. If the exterior remains sober, the interior is richly decorated: in the choir, the altarpiece attracts all eyes and becomes a real catechism in images. Baroque is the art of staging, of movement with the play of drapery and light, trompe l'oeil, gilding and bright colors, curves and counter-curves, volutes, dramatization and theatrical productions... It is the expression of grandeur and excess to seduce the faithful.
My God only golden! Here is a church richly decorated with altarpieces, made between 1690 and 1733. A decoration completed by the organ of 1773 made in Piedmont... The whole thing is remarkable and makes it a pearl of the Alpine Baroque!
After the effort, the comfort... of gold! The Sainte-Trinité church in Peisey, surrounded by a remarkable cemetery, can be discovered after walking up the main street of the village.
The parish, at an altitude of 1300 m, is mentioned as early as 1145 and we can assume that a church existed at that time. It was almost completely rebuilt from 1685 onwards and the bell tower was finally completed in 1699.
Without waiting for the work to be completed, the Peiserots were keen to decorate their new place of worship: seven altarpieces were thus created from 1690 onwards, all of great artistic and ethnological interest. Among them, the main altarpiece, entirely gilded, was sculpted by Jacques Todesco and Jean-Baptiste Guallaz, from Valsesia, a valley in nearby Piedmont.
Their work is one of the most imposing baroque altarpieces in the Tarentaise region: the complexity of the forms implies a very elaborate sculptural work, the profusion of decorations - notably the angels - and the richness of the religious message... This decoration presents the essential dogmas of the Catholic doctrine and reveals all the baroque sensitivity.
But don't forget to visit the side altarpieces, which are not lacking in interest either, particularly those of the Rosary and the Souls of Purgatory...
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