Yet here lies
another land, one that is just as appealing with
its harbours,
historic cities, fortified towns and villages isolated by
meadows. It would be wrong to believe that artists are
only interested in headlands and sails.
Brittany enjoys unparalleled renown;
being the inspiration behind
literature and art. The love affair began
towards the first half of the 19th century.
Most people are familiar with the writers
and travelling painters and can, at the
very least, point out the places they
lived, such as Cancale, Douarnenez
and Pont-Aven.
Everyone recognises
these towns and villages in some shape
or form. But were artists attracted to
Brittany because, on the one hand, they
were searching for new coastal, island
and rural landscapes, to draw attention
to its details and diversity? Or did they
come to Brittany because of how easy
modern life made it to travel the coast?
For instance, the rail network, which
reached all the way to Quimper in 1863,
the growing towns, development of
harbours, rapid industrialisation of the
coastline, boom in tourism and the fl urry
of comfortable hotels all helped to make
Brittany a popular travel destination.
The story unfolds as if we were observing
the past and supporting the artists – both
residents and visitors – in their attempts
to bring attention to an oft- threatened
heritage. As early as 1826, the British
artist J.M.W. Turner sketched urban
areas and remarkable monuments from
Morlaix to Nantes.
Ferdinand Du Puigaudeau,
Le calvaire de Rochefort-en-Terre ou l’office du soir, 1894,
Musée des Jacobins, Morlaix.
A few years later,
Camille Corot painted ramparts, quays,
chapels and fountains from Dinan to
Batz-sur-mer and from Mûr-de-Bretagne
to St. Malo. And we will have to refrain
from listing all of the artists who painted
in Concarneau, the creators of more
than a thousand paintings of the Walled
Town.
From Vitré to Quimper, castles
and fortifications continue to captivate
illustrators, engravers and painters
to this day. For example, maritime
painters have, since the Ozanne brothers
in the mid-18th century, been strongly
attracted to Brest’s arsenal and natural
harbour.
And Claes Oldenburg, the
American Pop Art master, installed an
enormous infl atable plastic sailor’s cap
in front of its emblematic castle at the
end of the 1980s, in honour of the sea!
There is no school or trend that neglects
Breton originality. In Carantec, a garden
was enough to attract the Russian
colourist Alexej von Jawlensky or
a hamlet in Trégor to delight Czech
abstractionist Frantisek Kupka. A
quarter of a century later, while Mathurin
Méheut and Yvonne Jean-Haffen were
drawing or painting the historic town
and its long progression, surrealism was
taking hold in Locronan, in Cornouaille.
Alexander Shevchenko,
Vue du vieux port et du quai Saint Antoine, La Roche-Bernard
Yves Tanguy was strongly attached to
the village and invited along his rowdy
friends, who quickly imposed an air of
spontaneity and rebelliousness, opening
up infinite artistic possibilities. No matter
the period, many of the most diverse
painters came to visit Brittany’s alleys,
quaysides, courtyards and ramparts.
It would take hours to list them all, but
among them were the dynamic Eugène
Isabey, who painted in St. Malo in 1851,
the Norwegian Fritz Thaulow, who
painted Quimperlé bridge in 1901, the
Dutchman Johan-Barthold Jongkind,
who painted the streets of Landerneau
in 1854 and the Irishman Stanhope A.
Forbes, the streets of Cancale in 1881.
The artists were a nomadic tribe – Jules
Noël from Morlaix to Hennebont and
Odilon Redon to Crozon and Auray
– and preferred picturesque, hospitable towns. Rochefort-en-Terre
would have
been left out had it not been for the
warmth of the Lecadre hotel, where
landscapist Léon-Germain Pelouse
taught his Norwegian students, Harriet
Backer and Kitty Kielland, in the
summer of 1881.
Next, the American
Alfred P. Klots stopped there in 1903,
before buying the castle in 1907.
There are few images of Josselin without the
spectacular fortress that dominates the
canal, though a postcard sufficed for
Bernard Buffet to paint it from home
in 1971. And let’s not forget Dinan,
which has attracted many artists, from
the Englishman George C. Stanfield,
who only passed through, to Yvonne
Jean-Haffen, who made it her home.
As it happens, if we were to list all of the
artists who have visited Brittany, a large
number of them would be foreign.
Today, the many religious, civil or
military monuments reveal new wealth.
Owing to its superb state of preservation,
this architectural diversity, spread out
along the coastline, or Armor, or else
scattered throughout inner Brittany, or Argoat, attracts many visitors.
Paul Signac, les trois-mâts jaune; 1931
Arkansas art Centre, USA
Though we cannot neglect the attention of
French artists, such as Camille Corot,
Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Paul
Signac, it is clear that as regards art,
Brittany’s renown is mostly due to the
sketches, paintings and awards of artists
from Scandinavia, the United States,
Great Britain and Japan.
And although the painters lived in this time,
their
wide-ranging work contributes to the
myth that this region is ageless.
The creation of art is a mysterious
process and the famous Paul Gauguin is
not the only artist to have been drawn
to the enigma of Brittany! In addition
to the Englishman Joseph M.W. Turner,
American Sandy Calder, Finn Hélène
Schjerfbeck, Russian Marc Chagall and
Swiss Paul Klee, we can list thousands
of artists who have used pencil, pen or
brush to turn Brittany into a hotbed of
art, and where creation has always been
kept alive.
Foreign artists in Brittany today.
There
is nothing better for reviving a subject than a fresh
view from an outsider:
with their bold choices and daring, sometimes even audacious
brushstrokes.
For
over a hundred years, these different and original
approaches have resulted in many
achievements, including the recent success of the Chinese Hé Yifu
and Haitian Ernst Jean-Pierre.
In
2005, several ancient sites and buildings,
particularly in the “small
towns of character”, captivated seven Russian painters; the
2006 season invites eight
Chinese artists with diverse techniques.
But
how many other, unknown artists are there? Perhaps in a year
or so, we will discover their work hanging in a museum
somewhere and
recognise
Brittany.
“Carnets de voyages de peintres russes dans
les petites cités
de caractère
de Bretagne” 2006 - Editions Ouest
France
George Clarkson Stanfield, Le Port de Dinan, 1871,
Castle museum collection - Town of Dinan.
In summer 2007,
Cornouaille welcomes
Yves Tanguy.
Although little-known in France, the painter Yves Tanguy
(1900-1955) was one of the three masters of surrealist
art. We often consider him to be American, as he lived
and worked for more than fifteen years in the United
States.
However, he was a born Breton and spent his
childhood in Trégor, in the bay of Lannion, and his youth
in Locronan and on the beaches of Douarnenez.
There, he learnt of the unique legends of lost
cities, ghosts
and magic stones. As an adult, he painted surreal places,
creating a mysterious art world that, in 1929, captivated
André Breton.
He led a turbulent life, but his art had a
very focused and interior appeal. In short, he worked slowly
and persistently for over nineteen years in France.
We should celebrate the fact that the Quimper
museum
is hosting such a large exhibition – approximately five
hundred works from seven countries – to reveal the secretive
art of an exceptional artist, undoubtedly
the greatest that Brittany has ever produced.
credits
: Brittany
Tourist Board
France Regions Brittany
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