There are many beautiful villages in the Aveyron region on route to Santiago del Compostella but one that is undeniably worth the stop is the ridiculously picturesque village of Conques with it’s unique Romanesque Abbey-church and medieval treasure of goldsmith art.

Distinctive for its function as a pilgrimage church the Saint Foy abbey church is registered among the World Heritage list. The massive structure made of yellow limestone, pink sandstone and grey-blue schist includes one of the most significant tympanum of the Last Judgment - a masterpiece of Romanesque art, as well as Pierre Soulages’ incredible contemporary glass windows.

Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture in 1986, Pierre Soulages immediately accepted the offer to design the abbey’s stained glass windows. Growing up in Rodez a few miles from Conques, the discovery of St Foy as a child left him in awe and consolidated his desire to pursue an artistic career from that point on.

It took Soulages and his team 7 years of research and testing to create the perfect glass to fill the Abbey-church with light. Unlike the past Gothic figurative and multicoloured stained-glass windows set after World War II, Soulages envisioned a chromatic, natural light and managed to create a translucent glass that was able to block the outside view but not the light from seeping in.

The result is outstanding, depending on the sun’s position and the light each day; the glass windows - divided into oblique lines - can naturally diffuse a chromatic colour scale from dark blue to turquoise or hot orange to yellow or Soulage’ signature luminous white.