Christian HeckPrésence de la lumière inaccessible. Les vitraux de Conques et la peinture de Pierre Soulages

In his book Présence de la lumière inaccessible. Les vitraux de Conques et la peinture de Soulages (Fage, 2023), art historian Christian Heck reflects on the painter and the “poetic revelation” that the abbey church of Sainte-Foy de Conques produced in him, initially leading the young Pierre Soulages to painting rather than architecture. It was an almost mystical experience, starting with figuration and ending with transfiguration.

The stained glass windows installed at Conques in 1994 are central to the work of Pierre Soulages (1919-2022). In the same way that in his paintings, when light encounters the pigment known as “black”, colours emerge, in the abbey church, “white” glass is rich in the colours emitted by the natural light that passes through it. For the first time, an analysis of the rhythm of the different stained glass windows, in the description of the registers of which they are composed, provides a better understanding of these compositions of great joy. The book shows that they share with the paintings the strength of these juxtaposed zones, of powerful drawing, of great emotional quality, in the service of an interiority and a mysterious light, making these stained glass windows “transfigured polyptychs”.