- Prints of the Pont-Aven School: Gauguin and His Circle in Brittany
- Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven: Prints and Paintings
- Paul Serusier
I am currently reading Prints of the Pont-Aven School: Gauguin and His Circle in Brittany.
5.15.2007
More on Pont Aven
You can buy one of the books by Caroline Boyle-Turner. She founded The Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art after publishing these books . They are all available used through aslibris.com:
Details For Our Arrival
As I prepare for my departure...there are many things to still gather and settle. I am posting our arrival instructions because the school has arranged to pick all of us up from the airport. None of us have any idea who we will be staying with and what kind of host family they are. The host family will greet us individually upon our arrival in Pont Aven and will escort us home. I am well aware that not knowing French will add an additional layer of complexity to the equation - the host families do not speak English. This expereince should be interesting as strangers will soon become fast friends.
Dear all,
Time to think about your arrival in Paris. Gwen Pacallet and Milena Martinovic will be in Charles de Gaulle airport to welcome you on Sunday the 27th of May.
The meeting point is at the INFORMATION BOOTH in the train station (Gare TGV), on the lower level of terminal 2.
We will be there at 11:00am and we will leave for Pont Aven with the bus at 1:00pm. Please be there before 12:45 so that we can leave on time.
Attached you will see what Gwen (administrator) and Milena (intern) look like.
Here also is a map of the airport to help you find your way, BUT if you get lost please find a telephone booth and call Gwen on her cell phone (please call, do not send emails, even on the Saturday if your flight is canceled or delayed!!!)
06 61 56 57 51
If you can't reach her on her cell phone, you can call the office in Pont-Aven:
02 98 09 10 45
Telephones in France work with a prepaid card: you can get this at any store in the airport that sells newspapers, cigarettes, books, etc. It is called a Carte Telephonique. Just stick the card into the slot in the phone booth and wait until the screen reads "composez le numero", then dial the number and wait until it rings.
Looking forward to seeing you,
CARINE
P.S. If you get lost at the airport, or your flight is delayed and you miss the bus, don't panic! Just call either Carine on her cell phone, or to the Pont-Aven office and we will talk you though how to take the train. Please DON'T just jump on a train without calling us first, as we will be worried without news, and there will be no one to meet you at the train station unless you have called to let us know when you are arriving in Quimperle (not Quimper, please)!
P.S. If you want to buy a sim card for your cell phone (bring your cell phone), SFR sells sim cards for 35€ at the shop called RELAY at the airport (just behind our meeting place).
Dear all,
Time to think about your arrival in Paris. Gwen Pacallet and Milena Martinovic will be in Charles de Gaulle airport to welcome you on Sunday the 27th of May.
The meeting point is at the INFORMATION BOOTH in the train station (Gare TGV), on the lower level of terminal 2.
We will be there at 11:00am and we will leave for Pont Aven with the bus at 1:00pm. Please be there before 12:45 so that we can leave on time.
Attached you will see what Gwen (administrator) and Milena (intern) look like.
Here also is a map of the airport to help you find your way, BUT if you get lost please find a telephone booth and call Gwen on her cell phone (please call, do not send emails, even on the Saturday if your flight is canceled or delayed!!!)
06 61 56 57 51
If you can't reach her on her cell phone, you can call the office in Pont-Aven:
02 98 09 10 45
Telephones in France work with a prepaid card: you can get this at any store in the airport that sells newspapers, cigarettes, books, etc. It is called a Carte Telephonique. Just stick the card into the slot in the phone booth and wait until the screen reads "composez le numero", then dial the number and wait until it rings.
Looking forward to seeing you,
CARINE
P.S. If you get lost at the airport, or your flight is delayed and you miss the bus, don't panic! Just call either Carine on her cell phone, or to the Pont-Aven office and we will talk you though how to take the train. Please DON'T just jump on a train without calling us first, as we will be worried without news, and there will be no one to meet you at the train station unless you have called to let us know when you are arriving in Quimperle (not Quimper, please)!
P.S. If you want to buy a sim card for your cell phone (bring your cell phone), SFR sells sim cards for 35€ at the shop called RELAY at the airport (just behind our meeting place).
5.11.2007
5.10.2007
About the Founder of the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art
“Dr. Boyle-Turner obtained her Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. She has been a Fulbright Fellow in France and a professor of art history at the American University in Paris and the Rhode Island School of Design. A guest curator at the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam from 1985 to 1989, she founded the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art in France in 1993, where she continues to serve as Executive Director. She has published numerous books and exhibition catalogues on Gauguin and his followers in Pont-Aven.”
"A Sense of Place: A Valid Tool of Explanation within Art History?
Caroline Boyle-Turner, Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, and Veerle Thielemans, Musée d’Art Américain, Giverny, Terra Foundation for the Arts. A major part of research in art history involves the mapping of an artist’s itinerary to different places, or the tracing of an artistic network that developed in a certain place. We invite speakers to reflect upon the nature of the art-historical narrative in which the notion of place is operative. What kinds of meaning are attributed to the connection among place, artist, and artwork? What models articulate the causal relationships among these three elements? How are notions of a geographical and a cultural landscape intermingled? What are the historical variants of this form of research within art-historical discourse over time? What are the effects of turning “artist sites” into mythical places ready for consumption by mass tourism? Both case studies and theoretical papers are welcomed."
"A Sense of Place: A Valid Tool of Explanation within Art History?
Caroline Boyle-Turner, Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, and Veerle Thielemans, Musée d’Art Américain, Giverny, Terra Foundation for the Arts. A major part of research in art history involves the mapping of an artist’s itinerary to different places, or the tracing of an artistic network that developed in a certain place. We invite speakers to reflect upon the nature of the art-historical narrative in which the notion of place is operative. What kinds of meaning are attributed to the connection among place, artist, and artwork? What models articulate the causal relationships among these three elements? How are notions of a geographical and a cultural landscape intermingled? What are the historical variants of this form of research within art-historical discourse over time? What are the effects of turning “artist sites” into mythical places ready for consumption by mass tourism? Both case studies and theoretical papers are welcomed."
Pont Aven and the Artists Who Have Visited
"I love Brittany. I find my own wildness and primitiveness there.” (Gauguin qtd in Silverman, 93)
"As an artist escaping in search of “primitivism,” Gauguin was not the first to find Pont-Aven, Brittany. According to historian Caroline Boyle-Turner, the small French village had been drawing in artists since the early 1860’s. (Boyle-Turner, 1) Artists were attracted to the region because of its strong local culture and religious fervor. The village, located on the Aven river, was populated by a group who, as Boyle-Turner puts it, maintained qualities of “a cultural past that was governed less by French culture then by a fascinating amalgam of Celtic, Druidic and medieval Christian folklore.” (Boyle-Turner, 1) This blend of ancient elements created an environment where artists believed they could encounter a more “primitive” and “true” people.
Yet, as Gill Perry points out, this “primitivism,” while still in existence, had diminished by the 1880’s, the peak of Pont-Aven’s popularity among artists and the period when Gauguin was working there. Technical advances in farming as well as the continuing increase in revenue from tourism had helped to move Brittany forward into the modern world and away from the timelessness artists had come looking for. (Perry, 10) Thus, Perry asserts that artists working in Brittany were more specifically recreating ideas of the “primitive” they were in search of rather than representing the true Breton culture around them. (Perry, 12)
Despite this conflict, artists continued to flock to the area from around the world. Besides a large number of French painters, including Pascal Dagan-Bouveret, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, a substantial number of artists came from both England and North America, including an early settler, American Robert Wylie. (Boyle-Turner,1) Although most of these artists, with the notable exceptions of Bernard and Gauguin, painted in a more traditional, academic tradition, they all shared similar subject matter, focusing on pastoral, religious and cultural scenes and largely ignoring the industry growing up around them."
http://blogs.princeton.edu/writingart16/archives/2005/01/_as_an_artist_e.html
"As an artist escaping in search of “primitivism,” Gauguin was not the first to find Pont-Aven, Brittany. According to historian Caroline Boyle-Turner, the small French village had been drawing in artists since the early 1860’s. (Boyle-Turner, 1) Artists were attracted to the region because of its strong local culture and religious fervor. The village, located on the Aven river, was populated by a group who, as Boyle-Turner puts it, maintained qualities of “a cultural past that was governed less by French culture then by a fascinating amalgam of Celtic, Druidic and medieval Christian folklore.” (Boyle-Turner, 1) This blend of ancient elements created an environment where artists believed they could encounter a more “primitive” and “true” people.
Yet, as Gill Perry points out, this “primitivism,” while still in existence, had diminished by the 1880’s, the peak of Pont-Aven’s popularity among artists and the period when Gauguin was working there. Technical advances in farming as well as the continuing increase in revenue from tourism had helped to move Brittany forward into the modern world and away from the timelessness artists had come looking for. (Perry, 10) Thus, Perry asserts that artists working in Brittany were more specifically recreating ideas of the “primitive” they were in search of rather than representing the true Breton culture around them. (Perry, 12)
Despite this conflict, artists continued to flock to the area from around the world. Besides a large number of French painters, including Pascal Dagan-Bouveret, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, a substantial number of artists came from both England and North America, including an early settler, American Robert Wylie. (Boyle-Turner,1) Although most of these artists, with the notable exceptions of Bernard and Gauguin, painted in a more traditional, academic tradition, they all shared similar subject matter, focusing on pastoral, religious and cultural scenes and largely ignoring the industry growing up around them."
http://blogs.princeton.edu/writingart16/archives/2005/01/_as_an_artist_e.html
5.09.2007
My Application...
...was pretty intense. I had to pull together 10 images for my portfolio, write a meaningful essay, and, gather all the bits and pieces. Since I have a professional job, and TA for Paul's night class, the process expanded to fill every last free moment of my time for a month. Here is the list of things I had to do in order to apply:
- Gather my art
- Photograph it outside the Cypress ceramics department
- Import the images into my computer
- Select the final images including details
- Color correct the images
- Create an image identification list
- Write my statement of purpose
- Fill out the application
- Obtain my academic transcripts
- Get Paul's letter of recommendation
- Create a booklet that includes all this information for the CD jewel case
- Draft a money order from the bank for the deposit
- FedEx the package to RISD
After all that work, the end result was worth the effort I put into it: My portfolio...
http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/9/1063140/Portfolio-Laura-Liptak.pdf
5.08.2007
My Invitation to Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art
Paul Paiement's invitation was the beginning of my long journey to Pont Aven, France. In the summer of 2006, Paul was invited to teach a summer seesion course at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in Brittany. He was unable to make it that year, and accepted a rain check for the Summer of 2007.
Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art is the European extension for Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. The school accepts 35-40 students per session. This small number allows the the students to learn in a highly concentrated environment.
"To change frontiers and horizons changes one's perspective: Art students should reach out to the world at some point in their training to study different concepts, different methods and historical precedents. The goal is neither to repeat the past, nor to copy the present, but to draw upon the unique qualities of Pont-Aven and PSCA to inspire new ideas.
For 11 years, PSCA has created an international community of artists composed of an excellent faculty and talented students. They draw upon the rich history and unique features of Brittany, as well as the area's traditional welcome of artists. Ours is an environment encouraging artistic experimentation and personal growth in addition to a broader understanding of different national and cultural perspectives.
The PSCA community consists of 35-40 students each session in the summer and 20-30 Post-Bac students during the 15 week semesters. Students in recent years have come from all over the United States, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, China, India, Japan, Jamaica, Korea, Guatemala, England, The Philippines and Turkey. Ages have ranged from 18 to 70. This diversity is one of the strengths of PSCA's program. PSCA was established in 1993 and has welcomed more than 600 artists and 75 faculty members since then."
In January 2007, Paul began to recruit a small group of intrigued students that ebbed and flowed up until the application deadline. The final four Cypress students who applied (and were subsequently accepted) are: me, Shyleen Davis, Lindsay Kennedy, and Ashlee Harper. Together we encouraged and supported each other during the application and money-raising process.
We are all now friends.
Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art is the European extension for Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. The school accepts 35-40 students per session. This small number allows the the students to learn in a highly concentrated environment.
"To change frontiers and horizons changes one's perspective: Art students should reach out to the world at some point in their training to study different concepts, different methods and historical precedents. The goal is neither to repeat the past, nor to copy the present, but to draw upon the unique qualities of Pont-Aven and PSCA to inspire new ideas.
For 11 years, PSCA has created an international community of artists composed of an excellent faculty and talented students. They draw upon the rich history and unique features of Brittany, as well as the area's traditional welcome of artists. Ours is an environment encouraging artistic experimentation and personal growth in addition to a broader understanding of different national and cultural perspectives.
The PSCA community consists of 35-40 students each session in the summer and 20-30 Post-Bac students during the 15 week semesters. Students in recent years have come from all over the United States, France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, China, India, Japan, Jamaica, Korea, Guatemala, England, The Philippines and Turkey. Ages have ranged from 18 to 70. This diversity is one of the strengths of PSCA's program. PSCA was established in 1993 and has welcomed more than 600 artists and 75 faculty members since then."
In January 2007, Paul began to recruit a small group of intrigued students that ebbed and flowed up until the application deadline. The final four Cypress students who applied (and were subsequently accepted) are: me, Shyleen Davis, Lindsay Kennedy, and Ashlee Harper. Together we encouraged and supported each other during the application and money-raising process.
We are all now friends.
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