My sat nav didn't register the
address I had for the Swiss Museum of Stained Glass (Vitromusée) at Romont.
However, as a major tourist attraction in a stunning location on a hilly island
in a sea of green, it was simple to find.
The Vitromusée is housed in Romont Castle which, together with the medieval church and houses surrounded by the
old town walls, ‘shapes the distinctive silhouette’ of the small, historic and
attractive town that is Romont.’ The hill
on which the castle stands extends to an altitude of 780m (approx. 2,500 ft.)
meaning that ‘the square in front of the castle opens onto a magnificent
panorama of the Alps, with the majestic Mont Blanc visible to the right on a
clear day.’
‘The keep and the main part of
the castle - which today houses the Museum’s stained-glass collection - were
built in the 13th century under Pierre II of Savoy. In the 16th century, the
new governors from Fribourg built a further wing - now home to the Museum’s
collection of reverse painting on glass. The entrance gate to the courtyard and
the well (depth 40m) also date from that period. The huge wooden draw-wheel for
the well (18thC), the parapet walkway, and some lovely old trees lend the
courtyard a particular cachet. In the course of time, the buildings were
converted to suit various purposes (barn, garage, prison etc.); until in 1981
the Vitromusée and in 1988 the Vitrocentre were installed.’
‘The Museum has a marvellous
collection of stained glass and reverse painting on glass plus temporary
exhibitions. The fascinating history of the development of stained glass is
presented in a permanent exhibition of key works. The visitor follows a path
leading past archaeological fragments from the 5th century AD, via masterpieces
of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Historicism and Art Nouveau right up to
the most recent modern glass art … Although the names of the artists who
designed the oldest pieces of stained glass are generally not known, later
works often bear the hallmark of well-known workshops or artists: among them,
to name but a few, the workshops of Dirk Vellert (16thC), of Gustav van Treeck
(19thC), or of Louis Comfort Tiffany; or the artists Alexandre Cingria, Léon Zack, Alfred Manessier, Yoki, Augusto Giacometti or Brian Clarke’.
Of particular relevance to my sabbatical art pilgrimage was a piece by Konrad Vetter entitled 'Canticle of the Sun' inspired by the Song of Praise of St Francis of Assisi and, through his reduction of leaded glass to its most
essential, a pure hymn to light.
A stained glass fragment by
Marc Chagall has recently been purchased and is on display together with a film
discussing his stained glass work with Charles Marq. ‘While he was finalising
the stained glass for Mainz Cathedral, Marc Chagall gave a small stained-glass
panel to the master glazier at the Simon Marq atelier in Reims with whom he had
worked for many years. This glass bouquet by Chagall is one of the rare
stained-glass panels by the artist that was not designed as part of a building.’
It occupies the central place in a special exhibition of the latest importantacquisitions by the Museum.
The Groupe de St Luc et St Maurice became based in Romont when its leader Alexandre Cingria settled there
in 1937. This group was founded in 1919 and brought together artists,
architects and intellectuals (including François Baud, Fernand Dumas, Marcel Feuillat, Adolphe Guyonnet, Marcel Poncet and
Georges De Traz, among others) whose aim was to breathe new life into church
art in French-Switzerland. Group members restored, refurbished and built
numerous churches, often designed as integrated works of art. In 1924, a counterpart,
Rot-Blau (red-blue), was formed in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Hans Stocker and Otto Staiger, which is still active today.
Cingria had a significant
involvement in the cultural life of Switzerland - literary, musical and
artistic – bringing an approach of ‘nonconformity and rebellion in an
environment marked by the Puritan reserve’.
He was involved in the creation of ‘Les Cahiers Vaudois’ founded by Paul Budry, Edmond Gilliard and Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. In addition, he
participated in journals such as ‘L'Oeuvre’, ‘Nova et Vetera’, ‘Aujourd'hui’ and
‘Ars Sacra’. From the 1920s onwards, Cingria created sets and costumes for
popular theatre shows in Switzerland while in 1936, he founded the Compagnons
de Romandie with Jo Baeriswyl with the purpose of promoting masterpieces of
Catholic theatre.
In 1917 he published a
manifesto 'La Decadence d'art sacre', which, in the opinion of William S. Rubin, ‘constituted the first serious confrontation of the problem of modern
religious art’ and ‘elicited considerable interest throughout Catholic
intellectual and artistic circles’ (‘Modern Sacred Art and the Church of Assy’,
Columbia University Press, New York & London, 1961). Paul Claudel responded
with a famous letter in which he described the contemporary churches against
which Cingria was reacting, as ‘heavily laden confessions.’ Their ugliness,
Claudel insisted, was the ‘demonstration to all the world of sins and
shortcomings, weakness, poverty, timidity of faith and feeling, disgust with
the supernatural, dominations by conventions and formulae ... worldly luxury,
avarice, boasting, sulkiness, Pharisaism and bombast.’
These artists and other
French-speaking ecclesiastics were in touch with and inspired by the writings of
Jacques Maritain and the practice of Maurice Denis. It was Maritain who put
Cingria in contact with Gino Severini which led to many ecclesistical
commissions in Switzerland for Severini, often together with the St Luke Group.
Denis first worked with some of these artists when he was commissioned to work
on the renovation of Notre-Dame Geneva and also became artistic director for
the construction of Saint-Paul Grange-Canal, also in Geneva. Together they
dreamed of "creating a movement of rebirth of religious art in France and
in all Catholic countries." This ambition resulted in 1919 in the
formation of the St Luke Group and also of the Ateliers d'Art Sacré by Denis
and Georges Desvallieres in Paris.
Although having support from
the likes of Claudel and Maritain and racking up significant commissions
between them, these groups by no means had it all their own way. The
reactionary Catholic critic Charles Du Mont, for example, reproduced works by
Denis and Cingria side by side in his booklet 'Ou en est notre art religieux?',
using them as examples of ‘free and wild artistic expression, whose dynamics
have led the world to catastrophe.’
Endowed with a vivid
imagination and full of poetic realism, Cingria’s style was similar to folk and
naïve art. His painting and stained glass is lyrical, seemingly spontaneous and full of both sensuality
and mysticism. The iconography that inspired his work has its roots in the
early Christian tradition.
At the Vitromusée I discovered
that the area has a Stained Glass Art Trail featuring work by Jean Bazaine,
Alexandre Cingria and Brian Clarke, among others. On this trail I was able to visit
Collegiale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption, the Gothic church in Romont, and
Notre-Dame de l'Epine in Berlens to see work by Bazaine.
Collegiale Notre-Dame de
l'Assomption has so many stained-glass windows it is a veritable museum of
stained glass itself; the oldest dates back to the beginning of the 14th
century, while others date from the 16th and 19th centuries. Modern windows
have been created by Henri Broillet, Sergio de Castro (north side-aisle),
Cingria (the Twelve Apostles in the clestory) and Yoki (Chapel of our Lady of
Portail). The ancient and contemporary coexist, although the contrast
between the works of different styles and eras is striking.
Yoki Aebischer Emile, who
hailed from Romont, was an innovator of modern geometric and expressive
techniques in religious art. Yoki was born in 1922 and, as a child, cycled through
the countryside to marvel at the stained glass windows of Cingria in Siviriez. After
various jobs, including that of a worker in a glass factory, he became a
draughtsman in an architectural office. As a result, in 1938 he met Fernand
Dumas, the highly prolific church architect, and through him, Maurice Barraud, Emilio Beretta, Cingria, Severini and other
artists of the St Luke Group. In the 1940s, he discovered the art of the Nabis
and, after the war, he attended the Academy of French painter André Lhote in
Paris. He went on to create more than a thousand windows for churches in England,
France, Germany, Israel, Italy and Switzerland,. He was also involved in the
repair of war-damaged monuments in Britain, France and Germany. As well as frescoes
and stained glass, he produced many paintings, lithographs, mosaics and
tapestries. In 1981 he co-founded the
Museum of Stained Glass, which is now the Vitromusée.
Also on the trail is the Cistercian Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu which commissioned Brian Clarke in 1996 to
create windows for its renovated and reordered chapel. Arriving to see these
windows I chanced to arrive for Vespers followed by silent contemplation in the
still onset of darkness falling. The flakiness of some of the lead nun's
vocals, before being caught in the wondrous harmonies of unified responses,
only added a sense that our individual fallabilities are accepted and swept up
together in the great corporate song of heaven. As participation in the service
did not facilitate the taking of photographs I enjoyed an overnight stay at the
Hotel du Lion D'Or before returning in the morning for a photographic session
in the early morning light.
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Van Morrison - Into The Mystic.
