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> So it's a surprise to me that anyone would believe that an old chapel in the south of France would necessarily be austere and plain

IIRC the project started in a very amateurish way. The area had been steadily declining for decades and at some point the locals created a bunch of non-profits to finance small projects like that one in the hope of making the place more attractive. All without much help from central authorities.

The chapel restoration involved students, amateur artists, etc. with no particular knowledge of the subject. The Church wasn't involved either at the start because the building had been abandoned for over a century and no one cared.

So the initial plan was to make it look like other chapels in the area: rustic, mineral, austere.

The project went sideways when they discovered those pigment traces all over the place. Regional museums and universities got involved, local government took notice, and the Church weighted in as well. At that point, it became obvious to anyone that, indeed, those places had been brightly painted from the start. But the general art direction had taken a turn for the austere a long time ago and there were a lot of people who liked things that way becauseā€¦ that's what they were used to.




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