During its almost 700 year history as a religious institution, it always had an abbess in charge of it. From early on these women were from very powerful noble and even royal families. In the Middle Ages and later, if noble women did not marry, their only other option was to become a nun. Various of the abbesses did not worry too much about the virtues of humility as demonstrated by these wonderful murals from a chapel at the abbey. Where's mother superior?
She's there when Judas betrays Jesus.
And another mother superior.
Is there at the descent from the cross.
The abbey became a prison during the French Revolution and remained so until 1963. Now it's a secular cultural site. Some contemporary artists used the image of the nuns in conjunction with other things in a piece described as, "Chimera of yesterday, chimera of today".
2 comments:
Is that a goat or sheep with it's head up the Nun's skirts?
Actually it's a hybrid deer-nun. Art or gene splicing?
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