Church of Petit-Andelys (France, Normandy) by Maxime Maufra, 1902

Maufra's 1902 painting of the Church of Petit-Andelys in Normandy depicts the medieval stone church of this village on the Seine, downstream from Les Andelys. Maufra was as committed to the Norman landscape as to the Breton coastline, and the region's historic stone buildings — churches, fortifications, villages — provided him with subjects that combined architectural interest with his primary concern for light and atmosphere. The Petit-Andelys church, with its Romanesque and Gothic elements, offered a venerable structure whose aged stone surfaces absorbed and reflected light in ways that suited Maufra's painterly concerns. The painting is privately held.

Maufra treats the church architecture with the same Post-Impressionist directness he brought to natural subjects. The stone surfaces are built with loaded brushstrokes that capture the roughness and warm tones of Norman limestone. The composition sets the church against the open Norman sky, using the relationship between architecture and atmosphere as the painting's primary subject.