The Miró labyrinth
A sculpture and ceramic garden Miró designed himself — a playful coloured world in the trees.
Waterborough — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Pierre Bonnard — Public domain · Waterborough — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Waterborough Sculpture: Germaine Richier (1902-1959), others — CC BY-SA 3.0
More than indoor museums, yes: here the art is a garden you walk, and Miró's sculptures read as play and colour before any theory. With the village after, the day is beautiful even if the art itself leaves you cold.
Bus from Nice to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, then ten minutes uphill to the foundation. Best order: foundation first, then down to the village for lunch, and the same bus back.
A complete walled medieval lane-village, now filled with artists' and craft galleries; Chagall is buried in its cemetery. Ninety minutes covers it, loveliest towards sunset after the tour buses leave.
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The Fondation Maeght is a modern-art museum on a pine hill near the village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, created in 1964 by two art dealers who were friends of the century's greatest artists — so the whole place became their collective work, not just a gallery. Miró designed a complete "labyrinth" of sculptures and ceramics for the garden; Giacometti has a courtyard of his famous thin figures; Chagall and Braque made mosaics and glass for the building itself. The works spread between naturally lit rooms and the pine garden, so half the visit is outdoors. Minutes away lies Saint-Paul-de-Vence itself, the walled village where the artists lived and painted — and pairing the two makes one of the Riviera's finest half-days.
A sculpture and ceramic garden Miró designed himself — a playful coloured world in the trees.
His famous elongated figures standing in a court of their own.
Mediterranean architecture with white sails, designed with the artists rather than for them.
The walled village on the facing hill — the Riviera's loveliest artists' village.
623 Chemin des Gardettes, 06570 Saint-Paul-de-Vence