Eglise de Saint-Genis-du-Bois
ChurchHidden Treasure
Nestled in the heart of the Entre-deux-Mers, the church of Saint-Genis-du-Bois reveals an authentic Saintonge Romanesque style from the 12th century, with its sculpted portal and its apse-ended chancels characteristic of Girondine Romanesque art.
History
Deep in the vineyards of the Entre-deux-Mers region, in the discreet Gironde village of Saint-Genis-du-Bois, stands a Romanesque church that has stood the test of time with confounding sobriety. Protected as a Historic Monument since 1925, it embodies better than many more famous buildings the spiritual robustness of Saintonge Romanesque art as it flourished in south-west France during the 12th century. What makes this building unique is precisely its lack of artifice. Where other churches from the same period underwent Gothic alterations or sometimes clumsy restorations in the 19th and 20th centuries, Saint-Genis-du-Bois has retained a remarkable architectural clarity. The walls are made of local ashlar limestone, with the characteristic golden hue of the Bordeaux region, and offer a material of great nobility that the light of Aquitaine is able to reveal at any time of day. To visit the church of Saint-Genis-du-Bois is to experience a silence steeped in history. The interior, with its pointed barrel vault, invites you to look up at an architecture that skilfully organises the space to lead the eye towards the choir and its semi-circular apse. Lovers of medieval iconography will find much to contemplate in the sculpted capitals: stylised foliage, interlacing and perhaps a few fantastic creatures bear witness to the skills of the local stonemasons. The surrounding setting adds to the magic of the place. Surrounded by its parish cemetery, the church gently dominates a landscape of vines and hedged farmland that has hardly changed since the Middle Ages. Photographers will particularly appreciate the late afternoon light, which sets the western façade ablaze and reveals all its sculpted reliefs.
Architecture
The church at Saint-Genis-du-Bois is a simple basilica with a single nave, typical of 12th-century Romanesque rural buildings in the Bordeaux region. This sobriety of plan, far from being a sign of poverty, reflects the mastery of the Romanesque builders, who knew how to achieve monumental effects with limited means. The nave, covered by a slightly horseshoe barrel vault, ends in a cul-de-four apse facing east, in keeping with Christian liturgical tradition. The walls are built of carefully coursed blonde limestone, quarried locally in the Entre-deux-Mers region, giving the whole a warm chromatic unity. Most of the sculpted decoration is to be found on the west facade. The doorway, whose arches are decorated with geometric motifs, billets and perhaps sculpted heads, bears witness to a meticulous iconographic programme in the tradition of the Saintonge school, which had a strong influence on religious architecture in Gironde. The modillions that run beneath the cornice of the eaves walls deserve particular attention: these small sculpted consoles, alternating human figures, fantastical animals and plant motifs, are one of the most delightful examples of popular Romanesque sculpture. The bell tower, probably located at the crossing or on the north gutter wall, adopts a massive, squat shape typical of rural buildings in the region, designed to withstand the vagaries of the weather and armed conflict. The building as a whole is stylistically very coherent, suggesting that it was built in a relatively short space of time, in the second half of the 12th century.
Related Figures
Saint Genès de Rome — martyr chrétien du IIIe siècle, saint patron de la paroisse et de l'égliseAliénor d'Aquitaine — duchesse sous le règne de laquelle le Bordelais roman connut son apogée architecturalGérard de Corbie — fondateur de l'abbaye de La Sauve-Majeure (1079), dont l'influence marqua l'architecture religieuse de l'Entre-deux-MersProsper Mérimée — inspecteur général des Monuments Historiques qui contribua à la redécouverte du patrimoine roman rural de France au XIXe siècleLes maîtres tailleurs de pierre locaux — artisans anonymes du XIIe siècle à qui l'on doit la sculpture des chapiteaux et du portail
