I come to my nice Rennes. This time one of the nicest monument , and of course the City is in Îlle et Vilaine dept 35,of my lovely Bretagne,I have come back to this beautiful City after a long hiatus and it was wonderful, Bear with me as the next posts will be on this beautiful City, Let me tell you about the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Rennes, part II !! Hope you enjoy it as I.
Constituted in 1794 from the works seized in the religious and civil buildings of the city, the Museum of Fine Arts, (Beaux-Arts) however, draws most of its riches from the fabulous cabinet of curiosities of Christophe-Paul de Robien, President in the Parliament of Brittany. This encyclopedic collection was one of the richest in Europe: paintings, sculptures, Egyptian antiques, Greek and especially Celtic, works of art from all continents, as well as an exceptional set of drawings where Léonardo da Vinci rub shoulders , Botticelli, Dürer and Rembrandt.
Between 1801 and 1811, state shipments completed the initial fund and brought works of primary importance, from Parisian revolutionary confiscations and conquests of the French armies that the central museum of the Louvre could no longer contain. Thus, great masterpieces illustrating the different European painting schools enter the collection: Véronèse, Persée delivering Andromède, Rubens, the hunt for tiger or the brown with the gigantic descent of the cross of the Versailles chapel. In the 19C, purchases made by the State for the salons enriched the museum of significant works of official currents, in particular the extravagant painting by Edouard Toudouze, Eros and Aphrodite. The installation in 1855 of the museum in a new building also housing the university arouses important donations and legacies: the gift of Eugène Froment of the Amaury-Duval, portrait of Isaure Chassériau, and the legacy of Paul Lucas which endowed the museum of a collection of Italian primitives.
Damaged by WWII, the Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes was the subject of a renovation in 1957, accompanied by a political active acquisitions which brought the collection into modernity: the Impressionists with Gustave Caillebotte, The perissoires and the Pont-Aven school, Emile Bernard, the yellow tree, Paul Sérusier, Solitude and the Blue Navy of Georges Lacombe. For twenty years, the museum has constituted a representative set of the various artistic currents of the 20C, for which there are some masterpieces: Franisek Kupka, moving blue, Pablo Picasso, Baigneuse in Dinard, Louis Marcoussis, Kérity station And the port of Kérity, Yves Tanguy, inspiration, etc. The contemporary art collection has developed according to several axes: first of all the lyrical abstraction with Sam Francis, Nicolas de Staël, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Joan Mitchell, as well as the geometric abstraction around the Group Measure with Marcelle Cahn and Francis Pellerin among others; Art built with Aurelie Nemours, François Morellet, Véra Molnar. The figurative painting is also present with the tutelary figure of Jean Hélion then Gilles Aillaud and Ming; Many Fnac deposits enrich these two sections, with the following generations, from Shirley Jaffe to Bernard Piffaretti, from Farah Atassi to Kirsten Everberg.
The Musée des Beaux-Arts of Rennes is located at 20 Quai Emile Zola.
I will add this one here as it is related indeed, You have the schools of fine arts and architecture settled in Rennes, This école des Beaux-Arts is a labyrinth of rooms, surrounding a cloister and a desperately empty garden is a place that visitors appreciate in the back court. This is a workshop-loft where Camille Claudel and Rodin would like to hide for prohibited loves and where Gustave Moreau would embark on a large fresco. We will have understood. This space exudes the beginning of the last century, the sculpted marble and the scent of naked models. In these buildings of the last century, the sisters of the Congregation of the Visitation lived there until 1908. Until the day when they gave up their chapel and their entire convent at the Conservatoire de Musique et de Déplamation and at the ‘Regional school of fine arts and at the school of architecture. Since then, the architects have left the premises, leaving artists a little more room to make their works.
It is located at the Galleries du Cloître, European School of Art in Brittany, 34 rue Hoche.
The official Beaux Arts museum of Rennes : https://mba.rennes.fr/
The Rennes tourist office on the beaux arts museum: https://www.tourisme-rennes.com/decouvrir-rennes/histoire/chefs-doeuvre-musee/
The museums of Brittany on the fine arts of Rennes : https://bretagnemusees.bzh/musee/musee-des-beaux-arts-de-rennes/
The official école des Beaux Arts of Rennes (Art, communication mention graphic design and design) : https://www.eesab.fr/rennes
There you go folks ,another jewel in my wonderful capital city of Rennes. The walks are worth it with plenty of lovely areas, Again, hope you enjoy the post on the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Rennes, part II !! as I.
And remember, happy travels, good health, and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 