When Mademoiselle Bon Plan isn’t uncovering great tips in person, who takes care of it? Her favorite photographer! So, I agreed without complaining to do both the photos and the text (who said exploitation?) to head around Nantes to the lovely town of Clisson, to explore the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot and check out the new contemporary and ancient art exhibition, Comme de longs en échos (Like long echoes).
This little spring getaway in Loire-Atlantique (Pays de la Loire region) is also the perfect opportunity to give you a quick sightseeing idea around Nantes if you’re passing through the city or living there. In fact, the town of Clisson is easily accessible by train from Nantes and it doesn’t lack charm, as you can see in the photos below. It is located in the Nantes vineyard, in the heart of the Sèvre and Maine valleys.
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Table of Contents
Visiting Clisson
Before talking about the exhibition, let’s talk a bit about the town where it is located, as it also deserves to be mentioned. Indeed, what a strange discovery this little town of Clisson is! In some places, you could mistake it for Northern Italy, even though you are 15 minutes from Nantes by regional train.
Clisson is characterized by a town center nestled between two branches of the Sèvre river, with the medieval Notre-Dame district and the Italian-inspired La Trinité district. The city also possesses a very beautiful heritage (a castle, a Templar chapel, churches, an ancient city gate…) that is worth discovering. In fact, it was a prosperous city in the Middle Ages because it marked the old border of the Duchy of Brittany.
I didn’t have the leisure to explore Clisson’s best addresses and nice little corners in depth, nevertheless, this scent of Tuscany has the merit of being surprising. Not to mention that the town hosts the Hellfest every year, an iconic metal music festival. In short, the city seems to appreciate contrasts and I can only advise you to spend a day there (whether listening to metal or not).
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Visiting the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot
The Domaine de la Garenne Lemot (therefore located in Clisson) covers 13 hectares and offers the public an astonishing Italian-inspired park, where antique statues and dense vegetation appear on the banks of the Sèvre Nantaise. Its creator, François-Frédéric Lemot, a fashionable sculptor at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century (notably known for having created the Louis XIV monument at Place Bellecour in Lyon) loved Italy… Hence his move to Clisson where he acquired an old hunting territory in 1805 to have his villa with Italian influences built! He would also transform the old forest into an idealized landscape, mixing architecture and landscaping.
In this spring of 2021, it is a very pretty place to stroll and enjoy the open air in a quiet and soothing setting.
Avenue Xavier Rineau 44190 Gétigné
The tip: access to the estate is free and open every day from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. until September
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Discovering the Comme de longs échos exhibition
Comme de longs échos (Like long echoes) refers to Baudelaire, whose bicentennial we are celebrating in this year 2021. Poetic and adapted to the situation, it well represents the event’s discourse where the past and the present converse with each other.
Under the supervision of not one, but two curators (Julie Pellegrin, director of Grand Patrimoine of Loire-Atlantique and Jean-Michel Jagot, independent exhibition curator, assistant curator at MAC VAL), the exhibition offers a journey featuring works by artists of our time that meet the collection of the musée Dobrée (the latter is located in Nantes and has been closed for renovations for several years).
Among the artists participating in this dialogue across the ages are Raphaël Barontini, Michel Blazy, Léa Le Bricomte, Clément Cogitore, Sara Favriau, Aurélien Froment, Loriot-Mélia, Emo de Medeiros, Rachel Morellet, Tsuneko Taniuchi and Emmanuelle Villard. Seeing the exhibited works, one is struck by the eclecticism of styles and techniques.
Thus, canvases from the “venus” series by Raphaël Barontini meet Gallo-Roman statuettes with female figures; the “Mandala” by Léa le Bricomte, entirely made of ammunition, echoes the ancient weapons in the display cases; the play of light and shadow of the artist couple Loriot-Mélia reveal other realities with a jumble of objects; or Emo de Medeiros, who draws his inspiration from new 3D scanning technologies, gives new life to ancient objects.
The exhibition has a beautiful narrative identity that takes the visitor on a visual and sensory journey accessible to all audiences. Whether for contemporary art enthusiasts who will enjoy discovering works by talented artists (some of which are loans from the MAC VAL) or for those who have no particular interest in this type of art and prefer ancient objects… Or just to spend a nice afternoon in a pretty setting!
Exhibition Comme de longs échos
From May 20 to October 3, 2021, Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Free admission and reservation required
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Thanks to the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot, to Loire-Atlantique tourism and to the agency Anne Samson Communications for this invitation to visit Clisson and the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot.
I hope that with all this I have made you want to visit Clisson as well as the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot, and if you also have your own tips and advice for this destination, don’t hesitate to share them in the comments! You can also go consult the website of the Nantes Vineyard Tourist Office for more info!
Photo credits: Nicolas Diolez Photos not royalty-free, photographer's authorization mandatory before any use
