“The bois d’amour” (Love Wood)

High place of inspiration of the Pont-Aven painters.

The Bois d’Amour is located on the heights of Pont-Aven. This charming walk between the trees and the Aven’s river was a high place of inspiration for the Pont-Aven painters. Today it is an out-of-time site, which offers the walker a nice walk along the river just a stone’s throw from the town center.

In the shade of the woods, the site seems completely out of time, you will hear the lapping of the water, see a fish sliding between the little rocks… The beauty of the place obviously comes from the trees and the light changing with the seasons. This ideal of the landscape was expressed at the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century, the picturesque was born. The search for pleasure and voluptuousness is at the heart of this admiration for landscapes. The Bois d’Amour also lives from its legend, from the tumultuous life which took place there secretly…

The Bois d’Amour enters history in September 1888, the date that corresponds to the meeting of Paul Sérusier and Paul Gauguin.

Gauguin’s famous painting lesson “Le Talisman” to Sérusier, took place in the heart of the woods and forever marked its history.

The Bois d’Amour not only occupies a place in the history of painting, it also symbolizes the history of our relationship with nature.

Take the path of “the walk of the Bois d’Amour” bordered by the Aven. At the beginning you will find a shipwreck, on which nature has taken back its rights. Then we go deep into the forest, with the Aven always by our side, silently noisy, following us like a shadow. There is something magical about this walk, of the order of Breton legends and mysteries… Among moss, trees and fauna, we cross the depths of a Brittany full of history. At times, you may feel like you are in a setting from a book by J.R.R. Tolkien.