Fresco Miniatures
French researcher Jean Brunelin has made some astonishing discoveries on the big bas relief in the church of Abbé Saunière in Rennes-le-Château. This enormous fresco on the west wall of the church was made-to-order for the priest and has puzzled researchers for almost 100 years now. Jean, with the help of friend and researcher Jean-Pierre Garcia, managed to get approval from the community council to make a series of extremely close-up photos of the fresco using special lights, revealing every little detail of the paintings on both sides of the relief.
Jean Brunelin has been investigating ever since Robert Charoux’s book guided him to the little village 40 years ago. Having worked as a professional journalist and photographer for many years, Jean has a huge photo library and is an expert on the terrain around Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains.
In 2006 he did a series of close-up photographs of the bas-relief on Saunière’s altar with Marie-Madeleine. In the paintwork he revealed a hidden miniature station of the cross and a miniature book. It was this discovery that gave him the idea that Saunière might have applied a similar technique in his biggest work.
It seems Saunière personally signed his work. Brunelin was puzzled by a little box painted behind the head of the baluster. Some have referred to this as depicting the Ark of the Covenant but Brunelin wasn’t convinced. A search for old French farmer funrniture taught him that this box most probably represents a box with a slide in the middle in which people used to keep salt in Saunière’s time. The very object was in fact even called a ‘Saunière’ in French, making it probable the priest introduced this feature as a gimmick referring to his own name. Anyone who uses an automatic translator to turn French texts on Rennes-le-Château into English, will have noticed that Saunière, consistenly turns out as ‘saltbox’.
According to Brunelin, a cartoon story is told on this fresco, hidden in plain sight. Some of the images he discovered are really remarkable, like this serpent, that has been painted in great detail. There are many other animals and artefacts displayed on the fresco. Features from the region feature in small miniature paintings, like the peculiar rock displayed in the background of the large painting of the Crucifixion in Abbé Boudet’s church in Rennes-les-Bains. There are also famliar stories on display here. Jean mentions the example of Charlot, the hero from Philippe de Chérisey’s ‘Circuit’. Charlot follows a tunnel underground until he reaches a fork. He decides to take the left tunnel to discover a treasure and a tomb. The hole, the fork and the tomb at the end of the left tunnel appear to have been painted in miniatures on the fresco.
Jean Brunelin has only just started his quest to uncover all the miniatures left to us by Abbé Saunière. No doubt, many interesting discoveries will follow in the next couple of months. The big photo of the elbow-shaped rock, taken near Rennes-le-Château, might be proof that Saunière painted an actual landscape within walking distance of his church.
Continuing research of Jean Brunelin on Jean-Pierre Garcia’s forum
French interview with Jean Brunelin on Terre de Rhedae
,©2007-2009 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved. Photos copyright Jean Brunelin, displayed here with kind permission.
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