Abbé Paul Amédé Lecoutre, Église décorée / Decorated church

picture tourist office Desvres Samer

Wirwignes is a small community of some 700 inhabitants in the coastal area of northern France, not far from Boulogne sur Mer.

Life and works

From 1863 until his death, Paul Amédé Lecoutre (1830-1906) has been Wirwignes' priest.

In 1867 he made a trip to Palestine, Egypt and Italy, and when he came back he probably was very enthusiast about what he had seen and experienced. His trip may have inspired him to make the biblical stories and the commandments better understandable for the many illiterate inhabitants of the community, by visually displaying these in the church.

Although abbé Lecoutre had no training in doing artwork at all, in 1867 he began decorating the walls of the church with frescoes and texts, all together kind of a catechism for the people of the parish. It's rather curious that in the same period another priest, abbé Victor Paysant, was active in decorating the church of his parish, Menil-Gondouin in Normandy.

Abbé Lecoutre did not leave a square centimeter of the walls and the ceiling of the church untreated. He also added all kinds of sculpted and decorated elements to the church. 

Apart from these decorations new chapels were built on the sides of the church and new glass-stained windows were installed.

this picture and the next one courtesy of 

Owen Philips, from his weblog 

In 1887 the works had advanced so far, that the bishop of Arras could re-consecrate the church.

Abbé Lecoutre continued his decorative activities. And then, in 1907 while completing a decoration in the height of the church, he fell down from the scaffold and died.

The priest was buried on the local cemetery in front of the church, .

The church became a historical monument

The church, which is owned by the municipality, in 2006 got the status of a historical monument.

It will be closed on weekdays. However, on demand a guided visit can be arranged by a volunteer of the Pas de Calais Greeters organisation (situation such as existing in 2017).

Documentation

* Article about Abbé Lecoutre
* Video by Jean Michel Zazzi l'Oeuvre de l'Abbé Lecoutre (shot in 2002, published on YouTube June 2014, 6'32", embedding disabled)

Video

* Video (2020, YouTube, 7'51", by pccL Longvilliers

first published May 2010, last revised November 2023

Abbé Paul Amédé Lecoutre

Église (de St Quentin) decorée
62240 Wirwignes, dept Pas de Calais, region Hauts-de-France, France
to visit contact the Greeters association

Didier Lobert, Donjon et Abbaye / Dungeon and Abbey

the dungeon at Saint-Germain-sur-Avre,
picture by kleretnet (on former Panoramio)

Life and works 

Didier Lobert de Bouillon Viéville (1934-2021) was born in Boulogne sur Seine, a suburb of Paris, France. His father was director of a small metallurgical factory and assumed that his son would succeed him later. That also meant that Didier Lobert as a young man was trained in a technical direction, while his preference was more in the direction of fine arts.

Recovering from a major operation in 1963, Lobert decided that he should not go further in engineering, but follow his true vocation and move towards art and design. Thereafter, he had jobs as an industrial designer and secretary of art galleries in Pars.

In 1968 -the year of the student's revolt- he had his own revolution and following his deepest wish to be a visual artist, he decided to move to the countryside, settling in Normandy, where his parents had a summer house in Saint-Germain-sur-Avre.

Here he would stay for the rest of his life.

Building a dungeon

And once arrived, he made a decision that would define this further life in a very decisive way.

Lobert wanted to build a studio where he could make paintings and he decided to construct an annex to the family house that shouldn't be some modern structure, but rather a medieval building that would fit in the lovely landscape of the valley of the Avre river.

It would become a dungeon in medieval style.

this picture and the next one France 3

When I wrote the original version of this post, I thought Lobert had Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) in mind, but according to Sylvaine Lobert, his daughter, he was inspired by the medieval architecture of the period of transition in between the Roman and the Gothic style, and probably also by the defensive constructions of old in the Avre area, once the frontier between Normandy and France. So, he is working in the twelfth and thirteenth century tradition.

I have the strong feeling that the look of his singular architecture answers to the image of a medieval castle we all have in our subconscious.

Lobert has constructed this 21 meter high structure with his own hands, without any training as an architect, mason or constructor (but his technical training when young was an advantage of course). The construction was made step-by-step, more based upon creative insight, intuition and common sense than on a fully worked out plan.

Lobert has used modern construction materials, such as reinforced concrete and breeze or cinder blocks cut in two. He has succeeded in giving the material a medieval look.

The interior also has a medieval atmosphere, with vaults, a spiral staircase, and so on.

In the early years of the 21st century the construction of the Donjon could be considered as almost finished.

summer festivities around the donjon, August 2010

picture from the website les Amis du Donjon 
(website not available anymore)

Transforming a house into an abbey

However, a new project was looming. Lobert de Bouillon Viéville, although at that time in his late sixties, began renovating his house.

It should become kind of an abbey. A medieval one? Of course!

picture courtesy of Sylvaine Lobert

As above picture shows, it once more became a wonderful construction. Built in Romanesque and Gothic style, the Abbey of Monthulé -named after a hamlet near the site- demonstrates how the use of concrete and contemporary building methods can result in beautiful buildings in the manner of the ancients.

The site in its current (2020) form, an artistic ensemble and an exceptional heritage, contributes to the appeal of the green Norman countryside where it is located, near the former frontier of the Duchy of Normandie with the Kingdom of France.

Association of friends

In 2008 an association of friends was founded by Sylvaine Lobert, daughter of the artist. 

Local disputes

In the course of 2019 it became apparent that - as is more common in the field of art environments - not everyone appreciates Lobert's works of art. Neighbors and local authorities are sometimes indifferent to the creations. Despite its character of heritage and its cultural significance, Lobert's site has become the subject of threatened closures, prohibition of visitors, and even, potentially, eviction and destruction of his work.

Didier Lobert de Bouillon Viéville passed away December 13, 2021

Documentation

* Weblog with a variety of information about the Donjon
* Article in OEE-texts (March 2020) about this art environment by Sylvaine Lobert, daughter of the artist, with a biography
* Article on SPACES webs ite (2012)
* Article in weblog Après la pub (April 2012), with some pictures of the site

* Article (September 2020) in newspaper Le Parisien 

Video

* Video (August 2020) by France 3 TV (YouTube, 2'42")

first published May 2010, last revised February 2022

Didier Lobert de Bouillon Viéville

Donjon and Abbey

7 route du Mesnil

27320 Saint Germain sur Avre, dept Eure, region Normandy, France
streetview

the site is not open to the public, but by appointment a visit (6-8 people) 
can be arranged 

René Pecqueur, Jardin décoré / Decorated garden

all pictures courtesy of Marguerite Tartart
(website not available anymore)

René Pecqueur (1933-2003), a conductor of engines, lived in the community of Louches, in the department of Pas-de-Calais, not far from the coastal city of Calais.

One day in the 1980s he decided to start some creative activity just to fill the empty hours (the reports differ about the year he actually began).

Pecqueur must have been active in making his creations for at least some twelve, but probably more years.

He first constructed a mill with rotating blades. Thereafter, in a very personal creative style, Pecqueur constructed kind of candelabra's and tree-like structures with brightly colored, lively scenes at the end of the branches.

Some scenes have been executed as kind of displays with movable elements which freely could be turned around by children (and adults who were not afraid to be found childish).

The decorated garden attracted a lot of visitors, not only locals, but also interested people from further away.

When in 2000 mrs Pecqueur suddenly died, René Pecqueur, overcome with grief, ended his making of creations. In 2003 he ended his life.

The site has been demolished

The Lille Art Museum was interested in saving the creations, but before staff members could have arranged technical support to store them safely, the heirs already had demolished the site. Only some small items have been left.

What remains are memories. And pictures like the ones by Marguerite Tartart, partly republished in this post, but originally published on a web page in memory of René Pecqueur created by a regional historical society (Webpage not available anymore) 

René Pecqueur

Jardin décoré

Louches, dept Pas-de-Calais, region Hauts de France, France

site demolished

Bill and Elisabeth Charge, The Watford Shell garden

pictures (around 1995) courtesy of Julia Elmore

Watford is a town of some 96.000 inhabitants in the county Hertfordshire, England, some 25 km Northwest of Central London. In the field of art environments it has become known because of the Watford Shell Garden, a creation by Bill and Elisabeth Charge.

Life and works

Bill Charge (1906-1987) was a baker in Watford. Around 1981, when he was at age 75 and retired, he and his wife Elisabeth began transforming the garden of their house into a shell decorated sculpture garden.

The couple decorated ornaments with shells and made sculptures by modelling these from concrete or by just covering dolls with plaster. These sculptures represented personalities like Humpty Dumpty, King Kong, Samson and such.

It has been reported that the couple created this art environment just to amuse the children in the neighbourhood. Visitors, especially children, were always welcome and invited to come in.

King Kong

After Bill Charge died (in 1987) Mrs. Charge has continued to take care of the garden. As the pictures, taken in 1995, demonstrate, in that year the garden still existed. 

The Raw Vision magazine of that time (issue #12) published an article about the site.

Mrs. Charge died afterwards and then the local housing authority, owner of the property, normalized (that is demolished) the garden soon after her death.

Watford remembers the site very well

There is a nice story associated with this art environment. End October 2016 the husband of a granddaughter of Bill and Elisabeth posted a message on the Watford Memories and History page on Facebook, asking -with a link to this post- if anyone remembered the decorated garden.

Well, thousands of people did and this resulted in over 6400 hits (in November 2021) of the post in the course of time.

first published May 2010, last revised November 2021

Bill and Elisabeth Charge

Watford Shell Garden 
Gammon's Lane 
County Hertfordshire, region East of England, UK
site doesn't exist anymore - but is in the memory of many Watford residents

Minna Haveri, Nykykansantaide / Modern folk art

picture from Maahenki website

The picture shows the cover of a book on Finnish art environments, that just has been published. Entitled Nykykansantaide it is the doctoral dissertation (in Finnish) of Minna Haveri, to be defended today, May 7, 2010.

Minna Haveri, a teacher of visual arts from Helsinki, is very interested in contemporary Finnish folk art and art environments and she has been following, documenting and analyzing developments in this field for a number of years.

sculpture of Finnish president Tarja Halonen
by Edvin Hevonkoski

In her study Minna Haveri tries to disclose the features and characteristics of contemporary folk art expression in Finland. She notices that contemporary folk art has abandoned the collective nature and traditionalism of traditional folk art. This has been replaced by individualistic artistry and original creativity. Contemporary folk art is rustic visual art, based on skill and creativity.

sculpture by Alpo Koivumäki 

(lotus and Egyptian lady)

The study is based upon interviews with some twenty-five Finnish folk artists, whose works have been analysed. Their creations have been described and documented with an abundance of visual material.

This book might be a landmark in the study of contemporary folk art/outsider art and art environments in Europe.

Minna Haveri, Nykykansantaide.
Helsinki (Maahenki), 2010, -272 p, ill.,
ISBN 978-952-5870-14-5

Maurice Dumoulin, La grotte à Maurice / Maurice's Grotto

This is a post without pictures. I only can refer you to above video on Daily Motion, a 11.05 min video entitled La grotte à Maurice, made by Julien Maguin and Philip Lespinasse, intended as a documentary on an aspect of outsider art.

Maurice Dumoulin (May 1910-2010) from Switzerland is the leading character of the movie. He was filmed in 2005 when he was in his mid 90s and because of the movie revisited a grotto he had digged out himself. According to the Lausanne Art Brut Museum he has been active in digging the grotto from 1975 until 1995, according to a regional newspaper he has done this from 1978 until 1984. According to this newspaper, he quit the project because -having realized 15 meters of access route- he stumbled upon an impenetrable part of the rock.

Anyhow, digging out the grotto as such was an enormous project. The grotto in the woods near Bussy, a small community in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland, is 16.5 m  long, 2 m wide and about 2 m high, which means that he must have removed singlehandedly and with simple tools some 60 cubic meters of rubble.

Dumoulin transformed this grotto into kind of an art environment by filling it up with an altar and a huge collection of all kind of objects he brought there, bottles, newspapers, ceramics, iron utensils, objets trouvés one could say, stuff that should have been discarded from another point of view.

I am not sure if this collection of objects had creative aspects. The internet hasn't evaluative descriptions and Dumoulin, when filmed, was probably too old to be coherent in explaining what this was all about.

As far as I understand the shots of Dumoulin revisiting his grotto have been done in the autumn of 2005; the film was edited in 2008.

The movie was part of an exposition in the Collection d'Art Brut in Lausanne entitled l'Art Brut Fribourgeois (February-October 2009), curated by Lucienne Peiry, at that time the director of the museum. So, with this imprimatur I suppose this grotto should be ranked as one of Switzerland's art environments.

On Google Books parts of the publication with regard to the exposition have been republished  (with pictures by Mario del Curto of Dumoulin and the grotto)

According to a local newspaper in May 2010, Dumoulin's 100th birthday was celebrated. According to an article on Wikipedia (first published on February 1st 2021) he died in the same year.

first published May 2010, last revised February 2021

Maurice Dumoulin
La grotte á Maurice
Woods of Bussy, Canton Fribourg, Switzerland

no visits