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The past can often seem a faded place once bright colours leach from ancient stone and outlines dim on old cloth or wood. But each year a festival in Britanny sets out to reinvigorate visions of the past with those of today.

Every summer since 1992, a string of 15th-17th century Breton chapels are turned into exhibition spaces for an eclectic range of modern art. The idea behind the festival - simply called L’Art dans les Chapelles (Art In The Chapels) - is "to connect works and places, to produce glances which renew our relation with these places".

There are over 1,000 chapels in Brittany, though the number of saints is not far short. “In Britanny we have 777 saints,” I’m told by a local woman as I admire the fine church in the gorgeous hill village of Rochefort-en-Terre, my first night stopover. “But the Pope doesn’t recognise most of them because they are Celtic,“ she adds with a mix of pride and defiance.

The region‘s Celtic connections become more concrete as I stand outside the 16th century grey granite chapel of St Trephine near Pontivy, which would look as much in place in a Cornish or Welsh village. Inside, a wooden ceiling curves in the shape of an upturned boat - a common feature in a region where boat builders helped build many chapels. The timbers are covered with a colourful mesh of simply drawn saints and angels.

The chapel’s stone floor, however, is dotted with strange four-legged old wood structures by artist Gilles Le Lain, topped with thick white and red paint which has solidified into a shiny ooze like melted plastic - a reference, perhaps, to the blood that dripped when poor St Trephine was beheaded by her murderous husband (St Gildas brought her miraculously back from the dead to gain revenge). Here, religion and modernism meet and strike a chord.

A couple of miles further on, I stop at another 16th century chapel, St Nicodeme, which provides the festival’s beautiful headquarters. As I admire the pastel-hued altar, a swift swoops in through the open door and makes dizzying aerial doodles before escaping again.

Later I talk to festival organiser Olivier Delavallade. Previously at Paris’s prestigious Pompidou Centre, Olivier enjoys the opportunities his very different Breton role presents. “I can choose the artists and the chapels and then try to marry the two, finding people who will be able to establish a relationship with the chapels.”

We speak in the beautifully sparse interior of St Nicolas d’Eaux in Bieuzy-les-Eaux. Around us, five hundred year old white walls present an array of work whose paint has barely dried yet feels perfectly natural in its new home. Perhaps, as Olivier suggests, modern art has replaced religion as an object of contemplation.

“Local people are happy to see new life brought to the chapels,” he says. Olivier sees the festival as a perfect opportunity to help people understand and appreciate modern art, with each chapel offering printed information about its artists and their work. Often the artist is also present to answer questions.

You can also combine your culture with exercise. A typical circuit of four chapels offers perhaps a three-hour walk, with beautiful Breton countryside between each art stop. Alternatively, you can hire a bike, which I what I do, cycling along a river to the chapel of St Gildas to watch a video installation of a woman skipping before continuing reflectively, warmed by the summer sun as I peddle back.

Water and art come together too at Kerguehennec, near Bignan. One of Europe’s largest sculpture parks, site-specific work by artists from around the world is scattered through a mix of woodland, lawn and lake. A fine 18th century chateau sits at the heart of the park’s 400-plus acres.

The chateau itself was closed for my visit, undergoing restoration for a re-opening this summer, but I’m happy enough just wandering the grounds, taking in the likes of Ian Hamilton Finlay‘s subtle tree trunk markings and Marta Pan’s striking red metal sculpture rising from the lake. A more formal exhibition space in the chateau’s former stable provides icing on the cake.

As well as artistic riches the Breton landscape offers mythical ones. The most potent is found in the forest known locally as Brocéliande (officially now Paimpont), which was immortalised by 12th-century poet Chretien de Troyes as the true setting for the legend of King Arthur, rather than the Cornish locations familiar to the English. There is a museum of Arthurian Imagery at the Château de Comper, within a wave of a wand of the lake where Bretons say Merlin built a crystal palace and where fairies still reputedly appear at night to admire their reflections.

Even in its English version, the Arthurian myth has Celtic undertones, part of the cultural diaspora that weds Brittany to Cornwall and Wales still. Several times I’m told by Bretons that they can understand Welsh, and the Breton place names on many signs show the similarities in words like ‘Ty’ (a Celtic word for hermitage).

Breton is spoken today by around 200,000 people. In the past, however, the French authorities punished those who spoke it. My host one night - the wonderfully-named Cedric Wildblood - speaks with passion about the stone necklace used in his grandmother’s time at school. Any child caught speaking Breton was made to wear it, adding a stone before they put it on. The only way to free oneself was to catch out another child so that they would take up the burden.

It’s enough to drive anyone to drink. Cider may be Brittany’s most famous tipple but I’m more struck by Breton beer - a revelation to anyone who associates French beer only with watery supermarket lager. One of the finest dark beers, just called XI, is made only on Halloween, the “darkest” night of the year. Morbraz boasts a unique iodine tang as a result of brewing using seawater. Ribot offers a refreshing hint of sourness, Cervoise Lancelot a delicious aroma.

Buckwheat, meanwhile, is used in both beer and as a key ingredient in the region’s famous crepes and gallettes which I try in Quimper, Brittany’s oldest town (dating back to Gallo-Roman times).

In the excellent Creperie du Frugy on Rue Saint Therese I work my way through several of these delicious savoury pancakes in the interests of research, getting my tastebuds around unfamiliar ingredients such as andouille (a take on intestines that tastes better than it sounds) and salicorne, a salty plant that grows in marshes along the rugged coast of Morbihan.

Quimper (Kemper in Breton) has a proud artistic heritage. The surrealist Max Jacob was a local star, while Gauguin lived and painted in nearby Pont Aven before setting off for Tahiti. As well as an excellent Fine Arts Museum featuring Breton artists alongside a couple of Gauguins, the city’s Modern Art Centre offers several eclectic exhibitions a year in a space created from old army barracks.

It’s a lively, good-looking city, too. The river Odet is spanned every 20 yards or so by tiny wrought-iron bridges, a panorama made more impressive each summer when they are draped with baskets of flowers. An old quarter of half-timbered houses embraces the impressive Cathedral of St. Corentine, with its beautiful stained glass by Anna Stein and a fine 1920s mosaic by Pont Aven painter Maurice Denis.

As well as art, Quimper is famous for a kind of pottery called faience, noted for bold colours and freehand decoration. Made here for three centuries, you can discover its history in the Ceramic Museum in Lokmaria, the oldest part of the city.

Its Gauguin links put Pont Aven high on any artistic Brittany list, even if the town makes a little too much tourist mileage from the association. But it’s undeniably a lovely place, and I’m happy to admire the bust of the great artist outside his old house and wander into a few of the town’s rather uninspired ateliers before grabbing a coffee in one of the riverside cafes.

There’s better art on display in nearby Auray, a more characterful place for my money than Pont Aven, and a favourite location for French filmmakers. I’ve missed the outdoor art market (Wednesdays and Saturdays) but the town’s cobbled streets still serve up some fine painting in places like Glaziou on Rue Neuve and fine food at restaurants such as La Closerie De Kerdrain in rue Louis-Billet or L’Eglantine in the beautiful old quarter of St-Goustan with its riverside ambience.

But perhaps the most unexpected discovery of my artistic odyssey through Brittany comes in the tranquil village of Nizon. It’s close enough to Pont Aven to have a Gauguin association - the painter used the Calvary of the village’s tiny 16th-century church as the model for his famous 1889 painting ‘Green Christ’ - but it also boasts a remarkable community of painters.

A decade ago, artist Yves Quentel decided it would be un bon idee to involve Breton villagers in painting. Given his would-be artists‘ lack of experience, Quentel came up with a simple method of working which is still in use. First take an old photograph that captures part of Nizon’s history - a well-known view, a village dignitary, even a prize-winning local cow. Enlarge the picture onto a painting surface and then get the villagers to add bright colour in the Pop Art style of Andy Warhol. Voila!

One of the joys of the resulting works is the enthusiasm and pride shown by the villagers in their efforts, as I discover when I meet farmer Maurice Even, one of Nizon’s 20 or so rural Pop Artists.

“Warhol painted the American jet set, we paint the local stars,” says Maurice simply, before revealing that his most recent subjects have been “three postmen, a horse, my grandmother - and Jacques Chirac!” He takes delight in telling me how Chirac saw his painting on a visit and was infuriated because Maurice had deliberately painted the French leader using colours associated with rival parties! Maurice laughs again when I ask if he goes to exhibitions to compare his work with the professionals. “I am too busy milking my cows!”

Even so, the village holds two striking shows each year to display their latest efforts - one at the end of July out in the nearest wood with the paintings displayed on the trees, the other in September when they adorn the village houses and shops with the canvases.

But none of the Nizon paintings are signed and none are sold. “It is a collective work,” says Maurice simply. “It belongs to everybody and to nobody.” The landscape, the chapels, the villagers - all unite to make art that seems ingrained in the very fabric of Brittany.

FURTHER INFORMATION
The Art dans les Chapelles festival will run from early July to mid-September. Chapels are open from 2.30-7pm Tue-Sun (closed Mondays), with information available centrally at St Nicodeme in Plumeliau. Guided circuit tours available in English on certain days. For further information see www.artchapelles.com or call 00 33 2 97 51 97 21

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