
Barbizon
The village of painters, 10 km from Fontainebleau
Located on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, the village of Barbizon is one of the legendary locations associated with Pre-Impressionist painting in France. From 1830, what was formerly a hamlet of woodcutters came to host painters looking for inspiration amid intact natural surroundings at the Auberge Ganne. Barbizon thus became a major draw for colour artists and landscape painters from across the world. Painters such as Millet, Corot, Rousseau, Daubigny and Dupré all set up their easels amid these wild landscapes.
Today, the Auberge du Père Ganne hosts a museum on the painters who came to Barbizon. Upstairs, the walls of the bedrooms in this inn contain traces left by the artists who stayed here. Drawings and paintings recall the Belle Époque.