Photo 1. Justin Kroesen and Aintzane Erkizia with the late Gothic altarpiece (Photo: Monique Dupont Sagorin)
On the morning of 27 April, several dozen people flocked to the village church at Fours-en-Vexin in Normandy, France. This Sunday, the purpose of their church visit was not to attend mass or listen to the preacher, but to hear a lecture we had prepared on two important artworks preserved in the church: a late Gothic wooden altarpiece with relief scenes made of terracotta and a fragment of a fine retable in the early Renaissance style sculpted in stone. We are Aintzane Erkizia, associate professor of Art History at the University of the Basque Country (Spain), and Justin Kroesen, Professor of Cultural History at the University of Bergen (Norway). We are both members of FRH and regard such activities to stimulate interest in historic church buildings beyond academia as part of our work as researchers.
About a month earlier, we had contacted the Association of Friends of the Church of Fours-en-Vexin (Amis de l’église de Fours-en-Vexin, see https://www.fondation-patrimoine.org/les-projets/eglise-sainte-trinite-saint-sauveur-de-fours-en-vexin/101924) asking if we could visit the church to study the artworks as part of a fieldwork trip through Normandy and Picardy. This association was founded in 2018 to “save this place and to revive it by organizing a variety of activities: music concerts, Christmas singing, various exhibitions, lectures, debates, workshops with youngsters from schools, colleges, etc.” (quoted from the website, in translation; an overview of past events can be accessed through: https://mdsphot.wixsite.com/amis-eglise-de-fours/copie-de-evenements). The larger aim is to bring the church back into the heart of the village. A special concern for the Amis at present is the upkeep of the splendid wooden porch on the south side of the nave. The contact persons, John Dupont and Monique Dupont Sagorin, responded with great enthusiasm and asked us if we would be willing to share some of our findings with the Amis in a short lecture.
Photo 2: The church at Fours-en-Vexin with a banner calling passers-by to donate (Photo: Justin Kroesen)
We gladly agreed and proposed to speak about 45 minutes on the church and its furnishings as a window on the history of the village and of European art history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The lecture was announced in the regional newspaper Le Démocrate Vernonnais (https://actu.fr/normandie/vexin-sur-epte_27213/leglise-de-ce-village-de-leure-au-coeur-des-recherches-europeennes_62530245.html), and on Sunday morning a projector and screen were set up in the chancel. We started by sharing some reflections on the importance of medieval church buildings as “memory machines” and keepers of local history in modern society. Often the only preserved buildings that are over 500 years old, churches offer us a unique, immediate access to the past. This past is not only religious, as churches also inform us about power structures, social relationships, economic history, ideas about life and death, beauty, ethics, in brief: of the mentalities of past generations in general.
Photo 3: Our lecture L’église de Fours-en-Vexin. Une entrée dans l’histoire was held in the church (Photo : Monique Dupont Sagorin).
We went on to speak about the wooden retable with the terracotta figures. Altarpieces of this type were in vogue during the fifteenth century and many are believed to have been produced in the city of Utrecht, in the present-day Netherlands. The reliefs were made using white clay that was found along the coast of Normandy, known as “terre de pipe” (in Dutch: pijpaarde). The clay was pressed into moulds before being baked and polychromed, a procedure that was quick and relatively cheap. The Fours altarpiece must have been imported by a parishioner of Fours-en-Vexin who had the means and the connections to acquire such an artwork abroad. As a result of Calvinst iconoclasm, no such retables have survived in the Netherlands. Most examples are now found scattered out over countries along the Atlantic coast, between Denmark, France and even in Spain. In our lecture, we highlighted the importance of the retable in Fours by putting it into its wider European context.
We followed a similar approach in explaining the stone-carved altarpiece. The central motif, featuring God the Father holding the suffering Christ clearly follows the model laid down by Albrecht Dürer in an engraving published in 1511. The style of the decorations surrounding it that of the early Renaissance, which flourished particularly in Normandy during the first half of the sixteenth century. Because of the high quality of their work, skilled sculptors from Normandy and Picardy were in great demand in the Iberian Peninsula, which right at that time saw a period of political and economic expansion. In our lecture, we explained how artists from northern France deeply influenced the art and architecture of Spain and Portugal introducing the early Renaissance style there. The Normands João de Ruão (John of Rouen) and Nicolas de Chanterenne became leading figures in Portuguese art, and Pierres Picart, who was born in Péronne in Picardy, did the same in the Basque Country. The two altarpieces, each in their own manner, tell us a glocal history, reminding us of how the little village of Fours-en-Vexin was always culturally connected to the wider world out there.
By picking up on the history and heritage found in a small parish church and putting it into its context, we tried to shore up knowledge, awareness and pride among the local community who is responsible for the upkeep of the monument, now and in the near future. In this case the formula was found spontaneously when we passed by doing fieldwork and the Amis of Fours grasped their chance by asking us for a lecture. The same procedure could easily be copied and rolled out in practically every other village church anywhere in Europe – examples are literally countless. All it takes is local communities who wish to keep their monuments buzzing with life and who are eager to learn and know more on the one hand, and researchers who are willing to spread their knowledge outside of academic circles on the other. We believe it is the duty of universities as public institutions to share their research results, in return for the support they receive from society. The beneficiary will be religious heritage, as only people who know the past of their monuments will care about their future.
By FRH members Aintzane Erkizia, associate professor of Art History at the University of the Basque Country (Spain), and Justin Kroesen, Professor of Cultural History at the University of Bergen (Norway).
Article published on 2 June 2025.
Follow us: