ENTER THE WORLD OF ARTISTS
Museums and artists' houses are available to you to discover the numerous works of painters such as Jean-Francois Millet, originally from Gréville-Hague or even Guillaume Fouace, exhibited at the Thomas Henry Museum from Cherbourg.
The artists knew how to stage the lake landscapes of Cotentin.
FAMOUS PEOPLE
The painters
Paul Signac
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was, with Georges Seurat, at the source of the pointillism movement. He also developed the technique of divisionism.
Louise Hallet, chief curator and director of the Cherbourg-en-Cotentin museums, talks to us about her life in Cotentin and her painting LThe Gatteville lighthouse which you can find at Thomas Henry Museum.
In 1931, Paul Signac acquired a residence in the fishing village of Barfleur, which he discovered a year earlier during his Tour des Ports de France. He chose a small fishermen's house located opposite the Saint-Nicolas church. Its windows overlook the imposing Gatteville lighthouse to the northwest, a 75m high granite monument, and the southeast to the small fishing port. Signac, painter and sailor, appreciates Barfleur, “a sufficiently eventful port, lined with beautiful and pure architecture; magnificent countryside; very wooded; and turbulent terrain: it is one of the points of France: the sea is beautiful, the gardens flower; a few meters from the sea, mimosas, southern plants; therefore mild climate. And it’s not far from Paris. »
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Signac spent four summers in Barfleur, from 1931 to 1934, the day before his death. In the port, he frequents sailors and the keeper of the Gatteville lighthouse. He fills small squared notebooks with sketches in pencil and watercolor, taken from life – the Gatteville Lighthouse with the rainbow comes from one of them. These notations allow him to quickly record a pattern, a detail, an effect of light, a meteorological phenomenon, an emotion. Signac discusses the Gatteville lighthouse on several occasions, which he sees from his workshop, set up in the small garden adjoining his house. In particular, he made it the subject of a small oil on cardboard, which is more akin to a sketch than a finished work. In the center of the composition, the lighthouse and its semaphore are simplified to the extreme, reduced to a simple graphic sign. A large cloud hangs over them. All round, it develops in space like an organic, living and sheepish form. Impastoes of white create a relief which enlivens the work and catches the eye. In oil, Signac rediscovers the principle of dividing the brush stroke, from which he moves away in watercolor. The colors are bold, grouped in contrasting areas. The sea is, in the foreground, similar to a mosaic: large square touches of blue, green and purple are juxtaposed, isolated from each other by the cardboard support left in reserve.
Letter to Gaston Lévy, October 27, 1930, private collection, cited in Paul Signac, summer 31: Barfleur and Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, maritime museum of Tatihou Island, Paris, national museum of the Navy, 2000, p. 9.
Paul Blanvillain
Paul Blanvillain (1891-1965) was from Barfleur, from an old family from Val de Saire.
At his birth his parents offered an ex-voto to the parish of Barfleur: model of The Faun, visible in the choir of theSaint-Nicolas church.
Blanvillain often painted the port of Barfleur and the fishing boat with its colorful sails, but also the Val de Saire manor, seaside landscapes and the countryside.
The writers
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert, born Jacques André Marie Prévert in 1900, is a poet, screenwriter and dialogist, known worldwide for his colloquial language and play on words.
In the 30s, Jacques Prévert fell in love with La Hague when he came to stay with friends. He then comes regularly to'Hotel L'Erguillère, to enjoy the spectacular view from room number 7, which overlooks Port Racine. Very inspired by these landscapes, we can find on the walls of his room some lines from the poem “Sands mouvants”
In the distance the sea has already retreated But in your half-opened eyes Two small waves have remained Demons and wonders Winds and tides Two small waves to drown me.
At the age of 70, convinced by his film decorator friend Alexandre Trauner, he bought a house in Omonville-la-Petite, which he described as the “Finistère closest to Paris”. He lived there until his death in 1977 and is now buried with his wife Janine, his daughter and his friend Alexandre.
The Prévert house opened its doors to the public in 1995. It allows you to be immersed in the artist's world, thanks in particular to the permanent and temporary collections devoted to the artist's works and poems, and to the organized events.
It is also possible to visit the gardens of Gérard Fusberti, a friend of Prévert, who in 1987 decided to pay homage to him by opening a remarkable place where plants and poems intertwine.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Of aristocratic origin, Charles Alexis Clérel de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29, 1805. His father, from the Norman nobility, mayor then prefect and peer of France, and his mother, granddaughter of Malesherbes, transmitted to him both the taste for public commitment and rejection of the excesses of the Revolution. After training as a lawyer, he was appointed hearing judge at the Versailles court. In 1831, he left for the United States with Gustave de Beaumont for a study mission on American penal institutions. On site, he is interested in the political system and even more in democracy in a country without aristocratic traditions, where the Republic is not disruptive but conservative of all rights. These analyzes will give birth to his famous work “On Democracy in America”. The example of France and the United States will nourish his reflections on the happy or dangerous developments of democracy.
If Tocqueville frequently changed his Parisian address during his career and if he often multiplied the different vacation spots, frequently taking advantage of the castle of Fosseuse des Kergorlay or even that of Baugy occupied by his brother Édouard, he is nevertheless not that one and only place where he truly feels at home as he himself writes, and it is the ancestral Tocqueville castle. When he discovered it for the first time, in 1833, he was immediately charmed by the impression of serenity and deep tranquility that the place gave him.
Alexis de Tocqueville is also involved in political life: deputy for Manche, representative of the liberal left, general councilor then minister of Foreign Affairs, he participates in the drafting committee of the Constitution, takes a position in favor of prison reform and of the abolition of slavery. After the coup d'état of December 1851, he renounced all public activity.
In 1856, he published “The Ancien Régime et la Révolution” and died in Cannes on April 16, 1859.
Gilles de Gouberville
Gilles Picot, lord of Gouberville and Mesnil-au-Val, a figure of 1870th century Normandy. His diary, published in XNUMX, is a valuable source of information on life in Cotentin during the Renaissance period. If you would like to know more, the Gilles de Gouberville committee, encourages the study of his Journal and promotes knowledge of the Goubervillian universe.
Jules Renard
Jules Renard came to Val de Saire for the first time in 1887 at the invitation of his employer. He spends the month of August in Barfleur and begins the novel Woodlice.
The writer returns to Barfleur in April 1890 to write his “beach novel” The Cornifleur, published in February 1892. Jules Renard and his family spent the summer in a fisherman's house, on the port, near the church. Barfleur appears in this novel under the name “Talléhou”.
In the small port, the sea swelled noticeably with the sigh of the flow, and, after timid hesitations where strength was tested, lifted the stranded boats one by one. They seemed to wake up and, like large black insects surprised by water, make an effort to regain their footing. Women sitting on their baskets were waiting for the conger eel fishermen.
The abbot of Saint Pierre
Charles-Fançois Castel (1658-1743) known as the Abbot of Saint Pierre was a writer, academician and philosopher at the same time.
Very ahead of his time, he is the author of a “Perpetual Peace Project” which will largely serve as a guide during the creation of the League of Nations (SDN) in the 20th century and then that of the UN.
His statue adorns the square of Saint-Pierre-Eglise.
The Saints
Marie-Madeleine Postel
Daughter of a rope maker from Barfleur, born in 1756, Julie Postel took the name Mother Marie-Madeleine Postel in 1807.
She dedicated her life to the education of girls and the restoration of the abbey of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte. Founder of the Congregation of the Poor Girls of Mercy, which is now known as the Institute of the Sisters of the Christian Schools of Mercy. Canonized in 1925.
The stained glass windows in the chapel of Marie-Madeleine Postel in Barfleur present the stages of her life. In the Saint-Nicolas church of Barfleur there is a reliquary.