In Bertrix, Belgium, there are votive offerings in the form of chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The sculptural decoration of one of them is the work of Jan Lambert-Rucki, a Polish artist living in France.

Thanksgiving chapels in Bertrix
Bertrix is a small village in the Ardennes, in southern Belgium, near the border with France. Forgotten, it lies between the tourist attractions of Bouillon, with the great castle of the famous crusader Gotfried, and Bastogne, where a large, modern War Museum has been built to commemorate the bloody Ardennes offensive, one of the last great battles of the Second World War. This German spurt was meant to delay the Allied advance, and brought great losses to both sides and considerable damage to Wallonia.

Bertrix miraculously survived, which the local priest and art historian, Canon André Lanotte (1914-2010) decided to commemorate. At the time, he was responsible in the region for carrying out post-war restorations in religious buildings, but here he showed his sense as a funder, and a funder of modern art, in which he was assisted by Father Courtoy. Four chapels of thanksgiving dedicated to the Virgin Mary were erected at four locations on the edge of the village by the end of the 1950s. Their designers were Walloon architects.

Notre-Dame-de la Foi chapel - architecture and decoration
The first of these, Notre-Dame-de la Foi, in the north of the town, was built in 1949 according to the ideas of Roger Bastin (1913-1986) and Jacques Dupuis (1914-1984). They were to model it on the old laundries of the countryside, open buildings where the cleaning of textiles took place under a roof, in a stone bath. However, Belgian publications devoted to them mention deeper inspirations from contemporary Scandinavian architecture and... the Polish pavilion at the 1937 Paris exhibition.

The chapels - small structures scattered among the farms and residential houses of the Bertrix commune - blend into the local landscape, not least thanks to the composition of the mass, the roof coverings and the use of local stone for the facades.

The furnishings of the four chapels were made by well-known Belgian and one French artist. More specifically, a Pole who had been settled in France for years and was already highly regarded there as one of the most prominent reformers of sacred art. At the time, Jan (Jean) Lambert Rucki (1888-1967) already had numerous, some large-scale, realisations in French churches. It was he who realised the entire sculptural decoration of the Notre-Dame-de la Foi chapel in 1949.

The glossy slate, which dominates the overall appearance, gives the building the character of an archaic sanctuary, and this effect is further emphasised by the raw concrete of the covering. The modest ensemble of sculptural works by Rucki perfectly fits into this aura of undefined antiquity. There is a bronze crucifix in the altar niche. It originally hung on the wall, but has now been removed and leaned against it. On the front wall are terracotta figures of angels and Mary (forming a scene of the Annunciation), while on the other side of the chapel, hidden in a niche, is a group of Mourners under the cross.

Both the chapel and its furnishings and surroundings were protected by the French Community of Belgium in 2017.

Jan Lambert Rucki - short biography
A native of Krakow, he was educated there at the Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Jozef Mehoffer. In 1911, he went to Paris and continued his education in the international Montparnasse circle, including at the private Colarossi Academy. Among his closest colleagues were artists from the circles of the so-called École de Paris who came from Poland, Hungary or Italy.

Rucki enlisted in the Foreign Legion, with which, during the First World War, he made his way as far as Greece. When the war ended, he returned to Montparnasse in 1919 and developed his work as a painter. Over time, however, he became increasingly interested in sculpture. He also designed mosaics and jewellery. He moved from post-cubist explorations towards the art déco style, of which he became one of the leading artists.

In the 1930s, the artist began to lean towards religious art. The large-scale realisations in the churches of Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris and in Blois became so famous that Rucki quickly rose to become the leading decorator of churches throughout France, particularly those of the modernist era. He collaborated with prominent architects of ecclesiastical renewal such as Georges-Henri Pinguisson (1894-1978) and Henri Vidal (1895-1955). He thus became involved in the work of the initiative known as the Chantier du Cardinal, an association that was founded in 1931 at the inspiration of the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean Verdier. It was a movement primarily for the construction of new churches in the Paris region. It also led to the creation of modern forms of interaction between architectural elements, stained glass, mosaics, polychromes, bas-reliefs and sculptures.

Colourful concrete Stations of the Cross thus became Rucki's speciality, as did iron or wooden crucifixes and archaised Madonnas. However, he also made relief decorations for the facades of many French temples. The artist's masterpiece seems to be his 'total work' - the Notre-Dame-de Consolation chapel in Costebelle, which rises above the town of Hyères in Provence. In it, he executed a total programme on the façade and interior consisting of sculptures, bas-reliefs, sgraffiti (scratched patterns) and mosaics.

Jan Lambert Rucki in Belgium
Outside France, Lambert Rucki delivered several works to Canada. In Belgium, he collaborated with the tandem of architects Roger Bastin-Jacques Dupuis on several occasions, including on chapels in Namur, in addition to Bertrix. His works in this country, however, remain almost completely forgotten.

The works from the Bertrix chapel are among Lambert Rucki's typical neo-medieval stylisations. They refer to the patterns of Romanesque and early Gothic sculpture, patterns which he simplifies, while nevertheless preserving the decorative value of the forms. He always makes excellent use of the architectural context, the background of the wall and the contrast of materials. An extensive collection of Lambert Rucki's works, including religious ones, can be seen in the collections of the Villa La Fleur museum in Konstancin, near Warsaw.

Notre-Dame-de la Foi chapel - now
Although the entire chapel complex at Bertrix was listed on the Belgian heritage register in 2017, the chapel remains largely neglected. The magnificently overgrown vegetation around it seems to be more valuable to the locals than the religious object. Although all elements, including the beautiful wrought-iron lattice, are preserved, rust covers the metal elements, while dust, cobwebs and bird droppings settle on the ceramic and stone components of this extremely subtle work. The terracotta sculptures have already cracked in several places....