Les larmes et l’extase

With a Hollywood style title in the vein of Irving Stone’s biography of Michel-Angelo, The agony and the ecstasy we all remember well, the aim of this book is serious: to run the census of sacred painting in Brittany, including stained glass and polychrome sculpture, and show the region holds unsuspected wealth that in some way links it to distant Italy. The text, spanning five centuries, from the XVth to the XXth, is brief and a touch too lyrical. But the value of this book lies in the images, offering close-ups on details that are often of difficult access. The saint Mériadec in the church of Pontivy, Saint Marguerite des lambris at Notre-Dame-du-Tertre in Châtelaudren, the Virgin nursing under her dais in Gouézec or the surprising Saint Viviane in wax at the church of Saint-Sulpice in Fougères all come to life. Through their cracks, the veins in the wood and the drippings of the touches of gold we discover another aspect of these works.

• Les larmes et l’extase by Thierry Le Prince and Arnauld Le Brusq, photos by Andrew Paul Sandford, Ouest-France, 2012, 224 p., €49