This summer, from July 4 to September 20, the Yan’ Dargent Museum presents the exhibition“Yan’ Dargent chez lui, en Léon” (Yan’ Dargent at home in Léon): this exhibition brings Yan’ Dargent back to life in the area where he lived and worked, its landscapes and his relationships in the 19th century.
The Brézal pond is depicted in two paintings: one belonging to the museum, the other, A la queue de l’étang de Brezal en Saint-Servais, is on loan from the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rennes.
“A la queue de l’étang de Brézal en Saint-Servais” ©Musée des beaux-arts Rennes Photo Jean Manuel Salingue
Portrait of François-Marie Luzel © musée des Jacobins de Morlaix Photo Isabelle Guégan-Inv.43
The exhibition also features Yan’ Dargent’s friends and acquaintances. We admire in particular a portrait of François-Marie Luzel from the Musée des Jacobins in Morlaix: this childhood friend of Yan’ Dargent was one of the greatest collectors of songs and tales from Lower Brittany.
Little-known documents evoke the intellectual life of Yan’ Dargent’s close friends: These include copies of music scores written by Eugénie Mathieu (Yan’ Dargent’s wife and a friend of Franz Liszt), sometimes illustrated by Yan’ Dargent, and a period handwritten copy of the French-Celtic and Celtic-French Dictionary of Arts and Crafts, known as “Dictionnaire de Brézal” (on loan from the Rennes University Library) by Jean-Marie le Thomas, a distant cousin of Yan’ Dargent’s grandfather, Pierre Robée, and teacher to Yan’ Dargent and François-Marie Luzel.
Beyond the life of the Saint-Servais-born artist, the exhibition is an opportunity to rediscover childhood and daily life in a rural commune of Léon in the 19th century.