Writers and Artists

The Eure et Loir has long inspired authors and artists attracted by the varied landscapes as well as the savoir-vivre of its residents.

From the changing colors and skies of the Beauce to the chateaus of the Royale Vallée de l'Eure, artists find no end of inspiration in the Eure et Loir. Many artists have been intrigued by the play of light and shade on Chartres Cathedral, including Camille Corot, who painted it in 1872.

The Expressionist painter Maurice de Vlaminck lived from 1925 to the end of his life in 1958 in Rueil-la-Gadelière where he captured powerful landscape from the Beauce to the Perche. In the 1930s, Chaim Soutine painted Chartres and the surrounding region while staying at the country house of the famous Parisian decorator Madeleine de Castaing in Lèves. And Jean Feugeureux was so inspired by the seemingly endless horizons of the Beauce that he spent the last years of his life painting nothing but their infinite beauty. He is often referred to as the "Cézanne of the Beauce."

The works of many of these artists can be found at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres. Also worth a visit is the Musée Marcel Dessal in Dreux where you can see Monet's Wisteria and much more.

Writers have also famously captured life in the Eure et Loir. Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu) was inspired by summer vacations spent at his aunt Elizabeth's home in Illiers (renamed Tante Léonie and Combray in his writings).  Born in 1871, Proust was a famous writer in his own lifetime, able to capture in rich detail the people and places that shaped his world. Today, his aunt's house is a museum, and Illiers has been officially renamed, Illiers-Combray.

Émile Zola wrote a harsh account of farm life in the Beauce in his classic novel, Earth. The historian and satirist the Duc de Saint-Simon wrote about the court of the Sun King from his chateau at La Ferté-Vidame.