Tuesday 2 August 2011

Windows

ladies at prayer, left
Today is a 'dreich' day as they say in Scotland. Grey overcast skies with smatterings of intermittent rain. Not really what one wants in August at the height of the summer season. We even had a desk lamp on earlier this morning! 

At the moment we are doing a bit of 'thoroughing', another good Scots word, meaning cleaning, as Thursday we pick up a friend from the TGV station at St Pierrre des Corps. She's flying in from Edinbugh to stay with us for a few days prior to going off in September on an 8 month round the world jaunt. 

Anjou coats of arms & hard working cherubs
To counteract the grey we thought we'd post some photos we took of the lovely glass in the church of Mézieres-en-Brenne. A while ago Ken, whose blog Living the Life in St Aignan we read, posted about the place and as stained glass naturally grabs our interest we went to have a look ourselves. 


smart blue suits
 The Anjous, whose chapel it is, were a wealthy royal family offshoot and it shows in the quality of the chapel carvings, glass and misericords--more of them some other time, there were some beautiful examples.

I went, it is fair to say, a bit snap happy as we took the 'good' camera. I'm slowly getting to grips with the bells and whistles on our Canon 500D and all the glass, and especially the use of amazing blues turned me into an accurate imitation of a child in a candy store! It's the advantage of a digital camera--you can snap like mad.
St Antony's pig peering round his robe









The jewel-like colours set against the white stone really made the chapel glow--just what is needed to brighten up a grey day.






PS: about 1 1/2hrs after we posted this the 'dreich' changed to sunny spells with rumbling thunder showers.....ah weather!

6 comments:

Jane and Lance Hattatt said...

Hello Niall and Antoinette:
We are sorry that you are experiencing a 'dreich' day but your idea to publish these wonderful stained glass pictures has certainly cheered things up for us at least!

Every time we see stained glass, we are for ever transported back to Chartres where we consider the glass to be sublime.

Craig said...

You captured the glass brilliantly (in every sense of the word!). It's grey here too (surprise, surprise) but the sun is almost out now and the forecast is better. Hope it improves with you too.

GaynorB said...

I agree, the stained glass is beautiful and it is very well photographed to get the detail.

It has brightened up here in LP-P but with rumbles of thunder around. We are just off for a long walk ....... fingers crossed!!

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Jane & Lance - completely agree with you that the glass at Chartres is sublime. I was completely overwhelmed the 1st time I saw it as a teenager. That intense blue--the art of creating that exact tint is lost to us-- was just out of this world. Sparked a passion for stained glass I've had ever since :-)

@Craig - thanks! You can never really capture it but one tries...

@Gaynor - one of the joys of having a new camera! It can get the details better.
Much rumbling and showers here later on in the afternoon yesterday.

The Broad said...

Lovely detail and the color is so good, too. I too love the stain glass at Chartres -- blue to die for! I yearn to go there again and again. Hope your weather has improved. Ours in the Lot was good for a few days and now is clouding over again and it's forecast to remain pretty marginal for the next week or 10 days at least...

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Broad - have visited Chartres a number of times and it has never disappointed. Weather here still variable too.