Pont-Aven

Painters came to Pont-Aven from the 1860s for cheap lodging and a landscape that felt unspoiled, and by 1888 Gauguin, Emile Bernard and others were working here on something new: flat areas of unmodelled colour enclosed by dark outlines, called cloisonnism, and a willingness to paint what was imagined rather than observed. Gauguin's Vision After the Sermon was made here. The chapel of Tremalo above the village holds the wooden crucifix he painted as The Yellow Christ. The Aven runs through the village past a string of watermills, and the local butter biscuit, the galette de Pont-Aven, is made in the town.

What's there

• The Pont-Aven museum - work by Gauguin's circle and the school that followed.
• Tremalo chapel - the wooden Christ that became The Yellow Christ.
• The watermills - mills along the Aven through the village.
• The Bois d'Amour - the riverside wood the painters worked in.

When to go

April to October; the museum closes on Mondays in low season and in January. The village is crowded in July and August. Autumn light suits the wood.

What to expect

Most of the famous canvases are in Paris and abroad, not here. The village is small and heavily commercialised with galleries and biscuit shops. Parking is difficult in season.

Nearby

Concarneau lies west; Quimperle is east.

Key facts