Pont-Aven is a favourite spot for artists, and a terra incognita to the majority of travellers in Brittany. Here the art student, who has spent the winter in the Quartier Latin in Paris, comes when the leaves are green, and settles down for the summer to study undisturbed. How far he succeeds depends upon himself; his surroundings are delightful, and everything he needs is to be obtained in an easy way that will sound romantic and impossible in 1879. Pont-Aven being set in a valley between two thickly wooded hills, opening out southwards to the sea, the climate is temperate and favourable to outdoor work. In the centre of the village is a little triangular Place, and at the broad end, facing the sun, is the principal inn, the Hôtel des Voyageurs, which, at the time of writing, has an excellent hostess, who takes pensionnaires for about five francs a day, “tout compris,” and where the living is as good and plentiful as can be desired. This popular hostelry is principally supported by American artists, some of whom have lived here all through the year; but many English and French painters have stayed at Pont-Aven, and have left contributions in the shape of oil paintings on the panels of the salle à manger.
We have mentioned the Hôtel des Voyageurs; but there are other inns; there is the Hôtel du Lion d’Or, also on the Place, frequented principally by French artists and travellers; and down by the bridge, a quaint little auberge (with a signboard painted by one of the inmates), the Pension Gloanec. This is the true Bohemian home at Pont-Aven, where living is even more moderate than at the inns. Here the panels of the rooms are also decorated with works of art, and here, in the evening, and in the morning, seated round a table in the road, dressed in the easy bourgeois fashion of the country, may be seen artists whose names we need not print, but many of whose works are known over the world. The resources of these establishments are elastic, accommodation being afforded, if necessary, for fifty or sixty pensionnaires, by providing beds a few yards off in the village. The cost of living, board and lodging, at the Pension Gloanec, including two good meals a day with cider, is sixty francs a month! When we add that the bedrooms are clean and bright, especially those provided in the neighbouring cottages, we have said enough about creature comforts, which are popularly supposed to be unknown in Brittany. The materials for work and opportunities for study are similar to those in Wales, with fewer distractions than at Bettwys-y-Coed.
Pont-Aven.
At Pont-Aven the presiding genius at the Hôtel des Voyageurs is one Mademoiselle Julia Guillou. At this little inn, as at the Hôtel du Commerce at Douarnenez, the traveller need not be surprised to find that the conversation at table is of the Paris Salon, to find bedrooms and lofts turned into studios, and a pervading smell of oil paint. It is said of Pont-Aven that it is “the only spot in Europe where Americans are content to live all the year round”; but perhaps the kind face and almost motherly care of her pensionnaires by the portly young hostess, Mademoiselle Julia Guillou, has something to do with their content.
The views in the neighbourhood of Pont-Aven are beautiful, and the cool avenues of beeches and chestnut trees, a distinctive feature of the country, extend for miles. From one of these avenues, on the high ground leading to an ancient chapel, there is a view over the village where we can trace the windings of the river far away towards the sea, and where the white sails of the fishing-boats seem to pass between the trees. The sides of the valleys are grey with rocks, and the fields slope steeply down to the slate roofs of the cottages built by the streams, where women, young and old, beautiful and the reverse, may be seen washing amongst the stones.
Returning from Labour, Pont-Aven.
Pont-Aven has one advantage over other places in Brittany; its inhabitants in their picturesque costume (which remains unaltered) have learned that to sit as a model is a pleasant and lucrative profession, and they do this for a small fee without hesitation or “mauvaise honte.” This is a point of great importance to the artist, and one which some may be glad to learn through these pages. The peasants, both men and women, are glad to sit for a franc for the greater part of a day; it is only at harvest time, when field labourers are scarce, that the demand may be greater than the supply. and recruits have to be found in the neighbouring fishing villages. Once or twice a week in the summer, a beauty comes over from Concarneau in a cart, her face radiant in the sunshine, the white lappets of her cap flying in the wind. Add to these opportunities for the study of peasant life and costume the variety of scenery, and the brightness and warmth of colour infused into everything under a more southern sun than England, and it will be seen that there are advantages here not to be overlooked by the painter.