Cultural hot-spots in the west of France
Straddling the lower stretches of the River Loire, France’s longest river, the Pays de la Loire (The Lands of the Loire) is an area of rolling countryside dotted with bustling towns and quiet villages linked by arrow-straight roads which would have swelled Roman chests with pride. While many visitors are drawn to the region’s capital, Nantes, for its famous summer arts festival, Le Voyage à Nantes, the area boasts plenty lesser known cultural gems to satisfy art, craft and history buffs.
LAVAL
Famous in France as a palindrome (it reads the same both ways), Laval’s old town is a charming cluster of stone-fronted and timber-framed buildings wrapped around a hill overlooking the wide River Mayenne. Visitors entering by road are greeted by a sign proclaiming ‘Ville d’Art et de’Histoire’, an official Ministry of Culture designation.
Fernand Lefresne (1924-2001), ‘Le vieux Laval’, 1988, oil on canvas (Museum of Naive and Singular Art)
Laval is the birthplace of the post-Impressionist painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), famous for his naive or primitive style. Rousseau was known as ‘le Douanier’, or the Customs Officer, due to his profession. His birthplace, the Porte Beucheresse, is the last fortified gateway in Laval.
Laval’s Vieux Chateau is reflected in the River Mayenne.
Fittingly, Laval’s premier art venue is the Museum of Naive and Singular Art, known by the French acronym MANAS. Located in the Musée du Vieux Chateau, its permanent collection (including three Rousseau originals) and temporary exhibitions are atmospherically displayed in several rooms, some with timbered ceilings and enormous stone fireplaces. When the museum opened in 1967, it was the first and only French establishment devoted to naive art.
Portraits in the Museum of Naive and Singular Art
Naive or ‘outsider’ art is typically made by self-taught artists working outside the mainstream. They make up for their lack of training with various solutions and tricks to express their ideas, such as playing with perspective or using unconventional colour palettes. The result is highly personal works created out of a spontaneity and freedom of expression only possible by ignoring traditional techniques or, more likely, not even being aware of them.
COSSÉ-LE-VIVIEN
A half-hour drive southwest of Laval outside the commune of Cossé-le-Vivien is one of Europe’s most extraordinary sculpture parks. Laval-born painter, sculptor, ceramicist and architect Robert Tatin (1902-1983) settled in Vivien in 1962 at the age of 60 and over the next 20-odd years set about creating a monumental body of work spread across a 15-acre site around the Middle Earth-like cottage home he also designed and built.
Applying knowledge he picked up while working with builders in Brasilia, and taking advantage of discoveries in reinforced cement mortar, Tatin’s ‘archisculpture’ resulted in the Robert Tatin Museum, a sprawling, dream-like work full of mythological and cosmic references.
The Avenue of Giants
Visitors enter the park along the Avenue of Giants, which is lined on both sides by facing pairs of tall figures in painted cement. Every giant represents a hero of Tatin’s – Pablo Picasso, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Charlemagne, Jules Verne, André Breton, Joan of Arc, Paul Gauguin and so on – each one telling a story. Gauguin, for example, stands in clogs typical of Brittany, where he often painted, accompanied by an upside down muse representing his sojourn in Tahiti on the other side of the world. (Or is it the artist giving birth?). Coloured dots on Georges Seurat refer to his pointillist technique, while a woman with a parasol reminds us of the lady in one of his most famous works, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
‘The Dragon’ is the benevolent guardian of the heart of the museum.
Further on is the Garden of Meditations, laid out around a central pool (it has become an officially recognised butterfly refuge) and a walkway leading to exhibition rooms displaying some of Tatin’s ceramics, paintings, drawings, prints and textiles, many influenced by his interest in astronomy, astrology and metaphysics and in such a variety of styles they might have been made by different artists. There is also a labyrinth, although a meditative path rather than somewhere to get lost, all adding to the spiritual ambience of a special place.
The artist’s house
Often associated with naive art, Robert Tatin always refused to belong to any one artistic movement (he declined André Breton’s invitation to join the Surrealist movement) and he remains unclassifiable.
MALICORNE-SUR-SARTHE
Malicorne has been awarded the national Town of Arts and Crafts label and is home to a number of ceramicists, wood-turners, porcelain painters and other craftmakers. You can find work by many of them in the Métiers d’art de Malicorne shop in the former “colours mill”, so called because its wheel was used to crush coloured stones to make pigments for painters. Artists and craftmakers also offer regular demonstrations.
When Clélia Chotard found an old inkwell on the bed of the River Vézanne, she recognised it as the work of Léon Pouplard (1865-1954), who for 60 years ran a local earthenware factory. The find gave Clélia an idea: Why not make jewellery from discarded earthenware? And so Atelier Vézanne was born.
Blue flower and its foliage pendant with gold finish by Atelier Vézanne
Calling her work “miniature paintings to wear”, Clélia cuts out small scenes depicted on antique earthenware pieces and sets them in 24-carat gold-plated brass. Her gorgeous range includes earrings, pendants, rings, bracelets, cufflinks and pins. As well as individuals, clients include the upmarket department store chain Galeries Lafayette and the chateaux at Chenenceau, Chambord and Versailles. Clélia won’t run out of raw material any time soon; her workshop is piled high with all manner of antique earthenware donated by locals.
Malicorne is sometimes referred to as the ‘earthenware village’ due to an industry which has existed there since the first factory was opened in 1747 thanks to the abundance of quality clay, wood to fuel the firing kilns and the river port from which flat-bottomed boats transported goods.
When he was young, Stéphane Deschang fell into a heap of clay – and fell in love with what would become his life’s work. His Faiencerie d’Art de Malicorne is now the last producer of ornamental earthenware in France, whether reproductions of traditional pieces or contemporary creations. *faiencerie: earthenware factory
Ball lamp base with fruits and flowers by Faiencerie d’Art de Malicorne
Stéphane still gets his hands dirty, digging his own clay. Processed, moulded, trimmed, dried, baked, glazed, hand-painted and fired, the precious material is transformed into a beautiful range of decorative and functional pieces ready to be shipped to customers all over the world.
Along the street, the Museum of Earthenware and Ceramics has guided tours and a permanent exhibition tracing three centuries of earthenware production with some of the finest pieces from local workshops.
The Museum of Earthenware and Ceramics in Malicorne
FONTEVRAUD-L’ABBAYE
Entered off a charming town square, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud is Europe’s largest monastic site. The former convent is now a thriving cultural centre with an on-site luxury hotel, a Michelin-star restaurant and a contemporary art museum.
Founded in 1101, the abbey was the last home of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who made Fontevraud the last resting place for the kings and queens of England, who ruled over that part of France at the time. The effigies of Eleanor, her husband King Henry II, her son Richard I (“the Lionheart”) and Isabella of Angouleme (Queen of England as the wife of King John) lie today in the abbey church.
The Abbey Fontevraud is Europe’s largest monastic site.
The French Revolution put an end to 700 years of monastic life. The complex became the property of the state and under Napoleon was converted into one of the toughest prisons in France, which it remained until 1963, when it became a national monument and cultural centre. Every year, artists are invited as part of a multi-disciplinary programme which includes atmospheric evening concerts and light shows projected onto the historic facades. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000.
The effigies of (clockwise from lower left) Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, Queen Isabella and King Henry II
In 2021, Fontevraud opened a Modern Art Museum in a former carriage house to show a collection of over 800 paintings, sculptures, graphic artworks and artefacts donated to the French state and the Pays de la Loire region by private collectors Martine and Léon Cligman.
The Modern Art Museum at Fontevraud
The eclectic collection includes works by Kees van Dongen, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Germaine Richier and a large collection of glasswork by Maurice Marinot. There are also artefacts from Africa, Asia and America such as pendants from the Mezcala culture of Mexico, prehistoric bird stone carvings from North America and Cycladic idols from the Bronze Age of the type which so influenced artists such as Picasso, Modigliani and Brancusi.
ANGERS
Capital of the Anjou region, Angers prides itself on being the greenest city in France, with 100 square metres of green space per person within a 10-minute walk – double the national average – and a ban on chemical products since 2013.
Straddling the River Maine, it is mainly known for its Chateau, one of the biggest fortresses in Europe when built, with massive ramparts and both the oldest portcullis and the biggest chapel in France. It is also a great starting point for a stroll around the Old Town.
The enormous ramparts of the Chateau d’Angers
But it is for a remarkable work of craftsmanship for which the chateau is most famous – the Apocalypse Tapestry, the largest surviving medieval tapestry series in the world. Commissioned by Louis I, the Duke of Anjou, and woven in Paris between 1377 and 1382, it depicts in striking detail the prophetic visions of Saint John (who appears as an observer on each of the 74 surviving panels), as described in the Book of Revelations. (‘Apokalypsis’ is an original Greek word for revelation.) Expressive characters play out the various struggles of good versus evil in a fantastic story evoking war, pollution, disease, famine, death, but also hope.
Visitors admire the Apocalypse Tapestry.
The tapestry is in remarkably good condition considering the treatment meted out to it over the centuries. Originally displayed in Arles, it was bequeathed to Angers Cathedral, where it hung until the French Revolution. It was offered for sale, but when no buyers came forward, the panels were put into storage before being cut up and distributed piecemeal. In the 19th century, a canon from the cathedral set about tracking it down and found a surprising number of panels. Just over 100 metres of the original 140 remain. In 1954, the tapestry was installed in its current custom-built hall. Tragically, for the first few years it faced a window the length of the hall, resulting in a 40 per cent reduction in colour – more than in centuries of neglect.
The Apocalypse Tapestry also inspired a museum devoted to the craft. Over in the Doutre district (from ‘outre’, meaning beyond) the Jean Lurçat Museum fills a vaulted space in the former 12th century Saint-Jean Hospital. Lurçat (1892-1966) was responsible for the revival of tapestry weaving in France, and the collection, dating from the 1930s to the present day, includes his own huge artistic achievement vision, Le Chant du Monde (The Song of the World), a visual odyssey from destruction and chaos to hope and joy.
The Jean Lurçat Museum houses contemporary examples of tapestry.
A short walk from the chateau is the Galerie David d’Angers, dedicated to the work of sculptor Pierre-Jean David (1788-1856), who adopted the name of the town where he was born. The gallery is housed in the former 13th century Toussaint (All Saints) abbey, where a glass roof installed to replace the collapsed vaulted ceiling casts diffused light over the displays. The collection consists mainly of studio casts of monumental sculptures from public commissions. These are usually destroyed after use, but David decided to donate them to his home town.
Some of the huge plaster casts in the Galerie David d’Angers
Other highlights include a plaster model for the pediment of the Pantheon in Paris, marble and bronze pieces, miniature portraits in medallion form and busts of 19th century cultural and political figures such as Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Wolfgang von Goethe and Niccolò Paganini.
Also part of the Toussaint abbey complex, the Museum of Fine Arts is considered one the finest in France outside Paris. A tour of the museum tells the chronological story of various art movements from the medieval period to the present day.
Angers Museum of Fine Arts
FURTHER INFO www.atlantic-loire-valley.com