CONCARNEAU

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 December 1938, Page 5

CONCARNEAU

EXHIBITIONS OF PICTURES. No fewer than eight pictures of Concarneau ,all by different artists, are on show at the Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Old Painters now being held in Piccadilly. Concarneau is perhaps the most painted of all Breton towns, and there is little to be wondered at in that fact, for Concarneau has everything the painter can wish for. It has been said by one well known artists that you can plant your easel anywhere in Concarneau and without leaving the spot

find a dozen pictures to paint. The little old port in itself is a temptation to paint, with its quaint old fortress and battlements, sandy beach, fringe of seaweed, and hills that slope gently away inland, quaint streets, old gabled houses that lean out over the roadway.. But it is as though there were a conspiracy on the part of the inhabitants of Concarneau. The fishermen at work on the beach are dressed in bright red and brown overalls, and their womenfolk, always near them in groups, wear white lace bonnets and big blue aprons. The men are mending their nets, but they are not ordinary fishing nets, for the nets at Concarneau are deep blue, and the boats they man bear out to sea in fleets, the wind bellying sails that are saifran yellow, orange, indigo blue, and carmine.

What artist who gets as far as Concarneau, even with intentions of going elsewhere, can resist the temptation to stop and paint? And then there is one other consideration, not artistic but important, living at Concarneau is unbelievably cheap.