CLAIRE BASLER'S CHATEAU DE BEAUVOIR
Each day, Claire Basler creates huge floral arrangements and places them around her house. By house, I mean chateau. Chateau de Beauvoir to be precise. She uses these arrangements from her garden as sources of inspiration for her large scale paintings. By doing so, she literally has inspiration wherever she turns. A carefully considered, blurred line between the inside and the out.
Claire has painted huge murals inside many of her chateau’s rooms where she then places in front of these murals even more flowers. I’m not kidding, it’s like a garden you can live in. Her kitchen literally has a living tree inside of it and I can’t say that I have ever seen anything like this.
I can certainly understand an artist’s need for inspiration in their immediate surrounds in order to produce their work. To find that creative zone we all try so hard to find. As I find myself pushing this blog further and continuing to develop my own product line, I realize how much I need the right environment to get it all done. I am most efficient when the creative juices are flowing and the vibe is just right. It takes quite a bit for me to get the vibe “just right”, but that is another story!
Back to Claire. She studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, yet it was at the Louvre where she found the sources of her inspiration, spending many hours observing the masterpieces of the museum’s collections. An artist she most admired was the work of 18th Century Frenchman Jean-Antoine Watteau who was known for his impact on the development of Rococo art in France. I can definitely see his influence in her work, perhaps mostly in the colors she uses and the richness of textures she creates.
I don’t think it would be easy to paint only flowers as an artist, and to paint them so beautifully. If I didn’t post any pictures of her work and just described it to you, I bet you would say it all it sounds rather unappealing. But as you can see from these images, it is far from that. It is ethereal and dreamy without going too far into the realm of ethereal and dreamy, isn’t it?
There isn’t too much more for me to say to you with this post because there isn’t too much written about Ms. Basler. I think the images here speak for themselves. That was what was so nice about discovering Claire and wanting to share her work with you. Even with all the magazine I read, sites I scour, and travels I take, I haven’t come across her until now. She has been written up in Elle Decor and the World of Interiors, among others, and I hadn’t a clue.
With that, I leave you to take in her images, paintings, and home. Enjoy this little trip to a chateau in France where a woman has created the most magical of manses.
