Matisse Chapel

 

This is not the chapel. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures in the chapel. The chapel is in Vence, a town in the hills behind Nice in the south of France. It was the main reason that I went to the south of France on my trip.
I took this picture in the historic part of Vence which dates from the 15th century. Its ancient town wall separates it from the rest of Vence. Many of the streets are as narrow as the one in the picture. There are also small open squares that add to the charm of this "old village." I was so enchanted by it that I spent a couple of hours here before going to the chapel.
Between 1947 and 1951 Henri Matisse, in his eighties and nearly blind, designed and decorated the chapel as a gift to the convent of Dominican sisters who had nursed him in an illness. Since it was another ecstatic experience that I had with stained glass, let me try to describe it. The entire south wall is long, horizontal waves of yellow, green and blue stained glass. The west wall uses the same colors vertically to hint at a "tree of life." The altar is made of a kind of pockmarked stone that resembles bread. On the other walls are simple line drawings of the stations of the cross, Madonna and Child, and St. Dominic. I felt enveloped by Divine Brilliance.