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Adele
Evans hears how the rural retreat of one of France's best
loved painters is being opened up to the faithful.
The impressionist painter Auguste Renoir once said that "when
an artist discovers the hidden treasure of a landscape then
others immediately exclaim at its beauty". It couldn't
be more true of the Aube en Champagne region in north-east
France, long famous for the fruit of its vine, and now for
its connections with Renoir. It was here, in his beloved village
of Essoyes, that he loved, painted many of his best works,
and spent all of his summers from the age of 39 until his
death in 1919. Now it's home to his great-granddaughter, film
star Sophie Renoir. His old studio has been restored and she's
flung open the doors.
"Renoir was very attached
to this place because his wife was from  here,"
says Sophie, "the wine was very good, he loved the food
and the women and the life was beautiful. Every season, every
hour of the day the colours change, but not too much - it
is, I think you say, very subtle".
Renoir was first introduced to
Essoyes in 1885 by a local seamstress called Aline Charigot.
She became his model and later his wife. The light landscape
and gentle rolling countryside delighted him. Down at the
bottom of their garden is the 'atelier', the studio, where
Renoir worked on his canvasses and sculptures.
As we walked into the studio,
I was overwhelmed. "There's so much light here, this
must have  been
why he liked it so much because of all the light and these
large windows?" I asked. "Yes, and its also at the
bottom of the garden," said my guide, "away from
the house and the noise of the children, but the light is
very good so he took to painting".
Down a side road in the village,
a crumbling sign points to Renoir's studio and behind it the
cemetery where he, Aline and their sons lie at peace in their
beloved countryside. It's all very understated and well off
the usual tourist map. It's also a far cry from Renoir's other
home in Provence and from other artist honey-pots like Monet's
Garden at Giverny. His great-grand-daughter Sophie Renoir
wants to keep it that way. "It would be impossible for
me to open the house  and
put plates and knives and forks on the table and say 'ahh
he used to have his dinner here'", she said, "we
don't want to have a Giverny here because it's very different
here. Monet was Monet but Renoir was a discrete person and
lived very simply."
Travel out of Essoyes and you
arrive at the vineyards which may well have inspired Renoir
when he was alive. "Renoir loved the atmosphere of these
places", enthused my guide, "and of course the wine
growers and the workers were very generous people and he liked
to drink their champagne!"
 In
the tasting room, one visitor was already in full flow. "Is
it possible to have too much champagne?" she drooled,
"No! let's have some more".
The area around Essoyes has to
be the perfect impressionist backdrop. The landscape is full
of those gentle soft colours; a mixture of the deep green
of the vines and the honey stone farm buildings. Further afield,
the town of Troyes, the region's capital, boasts that it was
France's first town with half-timbered houses. Its medieval
town centre is in the shape of a champagne cork and here too,
the atmosphere is more laid back and refined with an obvious
devotion to the finer things in life.
"We don't like to have hundreds
of people walking around," added Sophie, "we prefer
to have fewer people coming, and for them to know what they
come for. It's a nice little place which is simple, just as
Renoir liked. It's still a little 'sauvage', a little wild
in its nature, and we like to respect that".
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