Churches as a refuge for art in the Alps
The Alps are home to important fine art museums, notably in Grenoble, but it is undeniable that the most important art collections in our mountains are to be found in the churches and chapels. These include murals, paintings, sculptures and remarkable pieces of silverware. In the Alps, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the faith of the inhabitants and the talent of local artists - coming from France and Italy depending on the valley - allowed the creation of real jewels. And if some of the churches may seem austere from the outside, you absolutely must go inside to discover little paradises where the paintings tell us beautiful stories. It is impossible to list all the places to visit, but the baroque churches of Savoie and Haute-Savoie, and the chapels of the Hautes-Alpes offer treasures of mural paintings to be discovered during your escapades. Among our favourites, the abbey church of Entremont houses a fantastic altarpiece and an incredible treasure. The Museum of Sacred Art in Monêtier-les-Bains has a rich collection of polychrome wood.
Closer to home, two churches will attract art lovers: the church of Saint-Hugues de Chartreuse in Isère and Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce in Passy in Haute-Savoie. The first was decorated with 111 stained glass windows by the artist Arcabas. The second, decorated by some of the most important artists of the 20th century, is a veritable showcase of modern works by Rouault, Bonnard, Fernand Léger, Jean Lurçat, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Georges Braque, Théodore Strawinsky, Jean Bazaine, Germaine Richier, Odette Ducarne... Without doubt one of the most inspiring places in the Alps.Naturalism and landscapes in the Alps in the 19th century
In the past, painters rarely left their studios to paint a landscape, which they rather composed indoors. And if the French countryside inspired them, they knew very little about the mountains. Following the wave of the first mountaineering expeditions and the trail of the first tourists to the mountains of the Northern Alps, many painters of the 18th and 19th centuries travelled to the snowy peaks and were inspired by the landscapes. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) took to the Alps in the company of Newbey Lowson, himself an amateur painter. It was Lowson who paid for most of the travel expenses, including the hire of a cabriolet and the services of a Swiss guide, whose knowledge enabled Turner to document and annotate his drawings with unaccustomed precision. Turner's route took him from Grenoble to Geneva. In the space of a few weeks, Turner discovered sites of extraordinary diversity: the solitude and harshness of Mont Blanc and Chamonix, the calm and serenity of Lake Geneva.
The drawings made during the trip show the evolution - almost day by day - of Turner's pictorial imagination and graphic technique, and provide a fascinating insight into the mind of an artist in a period of intense stimulation. Turner chose different media for his work, sometimes pencil on tinted paper, sometimes colour. On his return to London, he collected the best drawings in an album for his clients, who later commissioned more finished versions. The Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler and the Frenchman Henri Deluermoz, a pupil of Gustave Moreau, also produced superb representations of the Alps in the early 20th century.
Advertising posters, a certain image of the Alps
Long before today's digital methods, advertising made use of the talent of the greatest cartoonists to get its messages across to a wide audience. From 1880 onwards, the Alps discovered the need to make themselves known in order to attract tourists, mainly from Paris, who were seduced by the new PLM (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean) railway line which served the major towns in the Alps. If the first lithographs - Hugo Alési - are rather naturalistic trying to show the charms of the mountain pastures, they are not less charming. The most beautiful advertising posters were created at the beginning of the 20th century to sell the charms of ski resorts such as Chamonix, or even more so, those which - in the 1920s - were inspired by cubism to offer us subjects - often women practising a sporting activity - with straight lines and bright colours. We can still admire the posters made by Roger Broders or the Swiss Eric de Coulon who allowed the Art Deco style to become part of the popular imagination through these posters - which are worth a fortune today.
The Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, all roads lead to art
Getting off the beaten track is the hallmark of a Petit Futé. So, let's get off the Northern Alps, which are very frequently featured in this issue devoted to Fine Arts, to explore together a route, the Contemporary Art Route, to discover works of art installed in a permanent way in the middle of nature or in heritage sites along a new cross-border itinerary between France and Italy, which passes through Digne-les-Bains, Jausiers, Château Arnoux, Seyne-les-Alpes and the Larche Pass. The opportunity to admire a wonderful nature, exceptional sites and works as part of a landscape recomposed by the artist, such as this Donjon de l'ours qui dort by Mark Dion in Seyne-les-Alpes
And if you appreciate Land Art, an artistic movement where the artist makes his work cohabit with nature, the arboretum of Roure, in the Tinée valley, offers a path in the forest dotted with works that fuel reflection on the relationship between man and his environment. Another artistic adventure to be experienced in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the Andy Goldsworthy Art Refuge: a 150 km walk around the largest geological reserve in Europe with, at each stage, a sentinel work to discover.
Grenoble Alpes Métropole, from museum to street art
Every major city in the Alps - Annecy, Chambéry, Grenoble, Gap - has a museum, a place dedicated to fine arts. But the Grenoble Museum, considered the first museum of modern art in France, is among the largest museums in Europe for its collections of ancient art or 20th century art. Lovers of painting and sculpture will be delighted with collections ranging from the 13th century to the 21st century with great masterpieces of classical Flemish, Dutch, Italian and Spanish painting, not forgetting all the major trends in contemporary art. Among the essential artists of the Museum of Grenoble: Le Lorrain, Fantin Latour, Veronese, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Georges de la Tour, Gustave Doré, Canaletto, Ingres... for the "classics"; Delaunay, Chagall, Picabia, Matisse, Modigliani, Léger, Delacroix, Giacometti, Klee and Picasso for the moderns. Not forgetting Munoz, Nauman, Andy Warhol, Polke or Boltanski for the contemporary ones.
Grenoble is a real cultural capital, not only in the Alps, but also in France and Europe. It was here that the MC2, a cultural center, was founded in 1968, one of the most important national stages in France. Hubert Dudebout, mayor of Grenoble from 1965 to 1983, wanted to put art at the center of the daily life of the people of Grenoble. But at that time, street art was still in its infancy and was being displayed illegally on the city's walls in the form of tags, graffiti and other urban engravings. Today, street art in Grenoble is not only recognized as an art form in its own right, but it is also encouraged, notably through the holding of an important festival - Street Art Fest Grenoble Alpes - which takes place every year. In 2022, 50 new frescoes were created on the walls of the Grenoble metropolis. The tourist office even offers 3 routes to explore the city while admiring the works of street art! If you don't want to follow an exciting guided tour(Petit Futé highly recommends it), you can also download the Street Art Festival application which will lead you to all the works created since 2015.Photography in the Alps
The Alps are not short of pictures. In fact, among the most photographed sites in France, the Alps have some unmissable spots, including the Palais de l'île and the Pont des Amours in Annecy, which rank in the top 10. But beyond mobile phones and selfies that have little artistic value, photography has allowed climbers to document their exploits on dizzying peaks, creating true works of art. Here again, and no doubt for practical reasons of access to the mountains near Chamonix, the most remarkable photographers took their pictures in the northern Alps. Pierre Dalloz, a founding member of the Vercors maquis and a friend of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was an accomplished mountaineer - with more than thirty first ascents to his credit, he was also editor-in-chief of the French Alpine Club's magazine - before becoming a mountain photographer who helped to publicize the beauty of the Alps and the extreme conditions in which they were climbed. To see the Alps through the eyes of the first mountaineers, you can visit the Maison Tairraz in Chamonix, a specialist in alpine photography, with its collections that take you on a journey through time and across the Mont Blanc massif.
