We don't have the opportunity every day to admire a painting by Vincent Van Gogh in Brittany.
From Saturday February 3 (and until May 26), the Pont-Aven museum, the only Breton museum to have benefited from an exceptional loan from the Orsay museum as part of “150 years of impressionism” , will serve as a setting for a painting by Van Gogh entitled “Eugène Boch” and dating from 1888. The Pont-Aven museum is in fact devoting a magnificent exhibition to the Belgian painter Anna Boch, Eugène's sister.
Also read: 150 years of Impressionism: discover the 179 works loaned by the Musée d’Orsay
“In 1888, Van Gogh met Anna Boch's brother in Arles.
He immediately wanted to paint this razor blade face.
He didn't know him but had heard of his sister's talent as a painter,” explained Sophie Kervran, director of the Pont-Aven museum, a town renowned for being the stronghold of illustrious painters such as Paul Gauguin, Paul Sérusier and Emile. Bernard.
Notwithstanding the work of Van Gogh, the exhibition is entirely devoted to Anna Boch, an extraordinary woman, born in 1848 in Belgium into a rich family of ceramists and who died in 1936.
Landscapes between impressionism and pointillism
“We chose this artist for several reasons.
It is very representative of the end of the 19th century.
She advocated total art, that is to say no hierarchy between the arts.
She was at the same time a painter, music lover, musician, traveler, collector and free.
A rare occurrence at that time, women did not benefit from any freedom at all, particularly in access to artistic training.
Coming from a very wealthy Belgian family, single until the end of her life, she affirmed her ideas and, without being a feminist, many times painted women, workers or peasants in full labor.
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We cannot formally catalog this great painter who could move from impressionism to neo-impressionism via pointillism, distinguishing herself from other artists by comma-shaped touches of paint.
This extraordinary woman, whose determination and talent command admiration, painted superb bucolic and pastoral landscapes on which mauve always appeared, the color she loved.
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One of the exhibition's favorites is undoubtedly “La Cueillette”, a painting representing a young girl in a field of poppies.
The artist worked, in addition to the colors, the material with small touches of the brush or, it seems, with a knife.
Many of the paintings have a story, anecdotes, notably the “Return from Fishing”, a painting supposed to have disappeared in 1928, reappeared in a private collection and exhibited for the first time in 100 years.
Two stays in Brittany
Anna Boch drew a lot of inspiration from her travels to paint.
Always with a pencil and a sketchbook in hand, she made more than sixty trips, opting for overnight stays in small, typical and authentic inns.
She was often accompanied by her brother, Eugène, also a painter but who never achieved the notoriety of his sister.
Some of Eugène's paintings are exhibited at the Pont-Aven museum.
But he will only remain in posterity for having served as a model for Van Gogh.
From her two stays in Brittany, more particularly in Cornwall, in Quimper and Bénodet, Anna Boch returned with paintings in a wild style, representing the rocky coasts.
Far from the bucolic landscapes she usually loves.
Anna Boch never met the famous Impressionists and residents of Pont-Aven but is still very close to these illustrious painters.
“Anna was one of the only ones to buy a painting by Van Gogh during his lifetime during the Brussels exhibition which was a real fiasco for the artist.
She was a great collector and acquired paintings by other artists from the Pont-Aven school.
Moreover, we can see them, represented in his paintings, exhibited in rooms of his home.
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The Anna Boch exhibition is on view until May 26 at the Pont-Aven museum (Finistère), place Julia.
Open every day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Monday.
Price: €8 and €6 (reduced), free for under 18s.
Such.
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