In the 19th century, the charming Breton village of Pont-Aven became the landmark of a group of artists in search of something new. Grouped around the strong personality of Paul Gauguin, Brittany was, for them, "a window open to the world. »
In the 19th century, the charming Breton village of Pont-Aven became the landmark of a group of artists in search of something new. Grouped around the strong personality of Paul Gauguin, Brittany was, for them, "a window open to the world. »
At the end of the 1880s, Paul Gauguin definitively abandoned Impressionism for a painting that he wanted to be more poetic and sacred. In addition to a taste for dreams, he also wanted to return to the sources of humanity, to the purity of the earth. Brittany, still isolated, seems to him a land out of time.
Quickly, many artists recognize themselves in this desire to return to the freedom of the subjects and their treatments.
Fleeing the Parisian salons they considered hypocritical and contemptuous, more and more of them came to stay in Pont-Aven, a village in Finistère with, at the time, only 1,500 inhabitants. They were inspired by Breton traditions and landscapes, often taking as a model the peasants going about their business.
I love Brittany. I find there the wild, the primitive.
When my hooves resonate on this granite, I hear the muted,
dull and powerful tone that I am looking for in painting.
By offering them a remarkable quality of life, the innkeepers of Pont-Aven also played a key role in the development of what soon became a real artistic movement. Owner of the Hôtel des Voyageurs, Julia Guillou, nicknamed "Mademoiselle Julia" by her guests, took advantage of the presence of the painters and offered quality food at low prices to attract as many of them as possible.
Marie-Jeanne Gloanec, a great figure of Pont-Aven, owns a boarding house where Paul Gauguin once met Emile Bernard. As his work La Belle Angèle proves, these women also regularly served as models for paintings that today bear witness to the special atmosphere that prevailed in their establishments.
The interpretation of nature added to the desire to show one's feelings through the line characterizes the painting of the so-called "Pont-Aven School".
Opposing official painting, rejecting the Greco-Roman model, these painters were inspired by Japanese prints and medieval art. They favoured flat forms, rejected the traditional perspective to draw attention to the central subject from the outset, and advocated freedom.
Gauguin, the leader of this movement, although composed of independents, defended "the right to dare everything, dare colour, exalt nature, go to the essential". A few years later, with Paul Sérusier, he will be at the origin of a movement that will continue the work initiated in Pont-Aven: the Nabis.
Today, a museum is dedicated on site to this extraordinary artistic movement which made the reputation of this beautiful Breton village which deserves so much. A chronological tour presents an incredible collection of 4,500 works. You can also discover a former dining room in which painters used to gather when they were travelling.
To programme your visit to the museum and discover its temporary exhibitions.
Bérengère for Comme des Français
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Continue your stroll in the land of art:
- Impressionist pilgrimage in Ile de France
- Gustave Courbet, the scandalous native of Franche Comté
- The most famous French painting in the world
