Always these Americans. March across the area with their rucksacks and leather bags, post their easels in the most impossible places and start with their brushes. To invade and celebrate in the bars in the evening. "Ils sont fous." They are crazy. The residents of Pont-Aven, a small town in the south-west of Brittany, leave no doubt about that. At least when they are among themselves. Outwardly one appears friendly. Where the Aven river flows into a fjord and several kilometers later into the Atlantic, merchants and millers have achieved modest prosperity. Now new sources of income are opening up: the strangers, who have been causing unrest since 1864, bring money into the community. The gentlemen with their canvases are not really rich, you can quickly see that, but tourists come in tow:a promise.
Til today. Pont-Aven is still considered the westernmost outpost of famous artist villages such as Barbizon, Étretat or Céret. The streets with their sedate stone houses have remained picturesque and extremely photogenic. The Aven meanders leisurely southwards, with boats and barges moored on its banks. The bridges over the river, which gave the settlement its name, are adorned with flowers, even the mills age picturesquely. Galleries and shops are lined up in the alleys. The usual souvenirs: canned fish, navy-style sweaters and jackets and galettes, biscuits with salted butter and caramel. In the showcases of the restaurants, oysters, sea snails and prawns are ready for the onslaught of gourmets, Riec-sur-Bélon, where you can get the particularly flat mussels out of the water, is only a stone's throw away.
But Pont-Aven is really famous thanks to the artists who rented here after 1864, attracted by the reputation of a Breton Arcadia.
They met a still rural community that traded in building materials such as stone and wood and in grain, potatoes and cider, while the farmers tilled their fields as ever - an everyday life in godly piety, with rituals based on the superstition of the Celtic culture took root.
A bankrupt stockbroker dreams of painting
So wide projection surfaces for people with wildly rampant imaginations.
In search of subjects, painters like Henry Bacon, who had discovered the small town for himself, Robert Wylie and Charles Jones Way wandered along the quays and the coast, enthusiastic about the Breton women in their traditional costumes, the enchanted chapels and the Bois d 'Amour, the forest of love.
As a result, they attracted more colleagues inspired by the longing for the simple life.
Until finally an artist colony emerged that acted so self-confidently that the mayor was forced to ban the serving of alcohol after ten o'clock at night in order to prevent the nocturnal noise.