Brittany Holiday and the French Impressionists
Are you a lover of art? Does the countryside inspire you to draw or paint, and make you hark back to the famous artists of yore? Then visit Brittany!
The French region of Brittany has inspired some of the most celebrated and prolific of the country's painters and we decided to pay a visit to explore the art and countryside.
Once an independent kingdom and duchy, the province is located in the north west of France and is easily reached by air and sea. Having a week in which to travel around Brittany, we packed our guide books and art materials and caught the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Saint-Malo.
The pretty town of Pont-Aven was the home of one of Brittany's most famous sons, the painter Paul Gauguin. We based ourselves for several nights at a charming bed and breakfast and chose to visit the Musee de Pont-Aven during the first afternoon to admire the works of art on display.
Pont-Aven and the area around it has changed little since Gauguin was there, though the town has become a Mecca for contemporary artists. We spent the next day wandering around the town and the nearby woods, taking in the lush Breton countryside and rustic architecture.
We took a short detour to the town of Le Pouldu in the south of Brittany for a morning, where Gauguin lived in a local boarding house, the Inn of Marie Henry. He painted a number of views in the town and the house he resided in has been transformed into a small museum after artworks by Gauguin and his friends were discovered on the walls there.
Le Pouldu was also painted by a number of other of the most influential impressionists of the Pont-Aven school, many of whom visited Gauguin during his time there, including Emile Bernard, Charles Filiger and Paul Seurisier.
A brief drive away, the megalithic monument at Carnac are a famed part of the Breton landscape and we stopped to marvel at the vast expanse of standing stones.
The town of Quimper on the Odet river has a pretty medieval centre, a lovely art museum, featuring works by Rubens and Picasso, as well as paintings from the Pont-Aven School. Quimper also boasts the oldest company in France, HB Henriot, where we took a tour and purchased some brightly painted pottery.
I was struck by the vividness of the colours in Brittany, as I assume were the artists that worked there. The woodland is impossibly green, the fields a patchwork of shades, the sea a vibrant blue, with white boats bobbing about and the towns and villages full of flowers.
A week in Brittany was a good length of time to relax, enjoy the scenery and learn more about the rich art scene that has flourished since the latter half of the 19th century. Pont-Aven has more than 80 galleries and numerous antique shops to browse in and we spent a pleasant final morning shopping in the sun before setting off for Saint-Malo.
The French Ministry of Culture has conferred the title of Villes d'Art et d'Histoire de Bretagne on towns of special artistic and historic interest in the region, making it easier for visitors to find their way around the province.
The food, wine and cider of the region is excellent and our trip around Brittany was accompanied by excellent meals of fresh seafood, traditional crepes and other delights. The climate during the summer is not dissimilar to southern England and the region tends to be relatively warm and sunny, with some cooler, cloudier days.
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