Chauvigny Church Capitals

As I was saying, not large, Romanesque, painted, barrel vaulting in the nave, nothing terribly exceptional for the 12th century...

Until you get to the apse and look up from the altar to the
column capitals...

Then all Hell breaks loose..right over the altar

Literally...

Taking the old Doric, Ionian, Corinthian thing to new
heights, or depths, if you prefer... 

I didn't collect the whole set

Only the most lurid

And amusing

And imaginative

Of course

It went on, though,

And I was worried the serious and reverential French tourists were going to
call the gendarmes

About the crazy Americaines rolling in the aisles at St. Pierre's

But it all had a happy ending, and we left peaceably; and the Parish Church of
St. Mary and St. David in Kilpeck, near Hereford--http://roadeveron.blogspot.fr/2009/
10/parish-church-of-st-mary-and-st-david.html--now has a serious rival for the title
of "most hilarious church"