The Valley of the Painters

Painters come to seek new emotionsvelles, freed from the constraints of the studio, with the development of paint tubes. And, from the middle of the 19th century, thanks to the railway, these Impressionists in search of "open-air painting" set up their easels on the banks of the Creuse, the Gargilesse, the Petite Creuse and the Sédelle. Thus came Jules and Victor Dupré, Théodore Rousseau, Constant Troyon... Vallée de la Creuse is experiencing a real craze and attracts great masters, such as Claude Monet Fresselines, who made this valley a center of Impressionism. He was succeeded by Armand Guillaumin in Crozant, who became the leader of the Valley's painters.

The poet Maurice Rollinat, also charmed, settled in Fresselines. Until the 1930s, Post-Impressionists such as Fernand Maillaud and Léon Detroy, and Expressionists such as Anders Osterlind and Emile-Othon Friesz, right up to the avant-garde Francis Picabia, continued to frequent these never-exhausted sites.

These paintings between Berry and Limousin are exhibited in museums around the world, Paris, Copenhagen, Geneva, Cambridge, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago… Today the landscape has evolved, a new valley is being invented while retaining its charm, its beauty and its preserved nature.